


I Can Make You Love Me

by ectoBisexual



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anal Sex, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, It's not quite as tragic as it seems I swear, M/M, Oral Sex, TW: Self Harm, TW: Suicide, The title is a British India song :), tw: depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-25 07:12:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectoBisexual/pseuds/ectoBisexual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave tries to kill himself and ends up in a coma that's instantly deemed fatal. Meanwhile, John finds a series of letters addressed to him depicting all of Dave's feelings towards him.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

[Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXOAwbazzKQ)our name is John Egbert, and today at precisely 7:45 am, you were informed that your best friend had killed himself.

Technically, he died this morning, and technically, you could have done something to stop it if you'd stayed up late talking to him like you normally did. But finals had been stressing you out so much and you really had just needed one night of decent sleep, so you'd logged off of Pesterchum around 11 and told him you'd see him tomorrow. He hadn't said it back, and you hadn't even noticed.

The official report says he lost consciousness last night, 11:55 pm when you were sound asleep and Houston, Texas was at its most quiet, but you've learnt that he didn't actually stop breathing until 12:04.

"It'll be okay," your dad says, but he has cried more than you and it has only been one day since you got the news. "Dirk says that they still have him on life support, son. People come out of comas all the time. Miracles happen every day. We just have to stay strong."

Yeah, you think, people do come out of comas all the time, only his coma had been deemed fatal within his first five minutes and you knew that Bro would only wait five days ( "-saying I'm your only family, so if one of us got seriously hurt it'd be up to the other to pull the plug, I just don't know if you'd be capable is all I was-"), because that is what Dave had wanted ( "and thats the fucked up thing, thinking that youd wait for me, if it didnt look like i was about to immediately spring back to life snow white style then id fully expect you to pull the plug on my ass-") when he and his brother had discussed it, briefly, on a whim ( "So how long would you want me to wait?" ) last August, when you'd been over because their air conditioner was better than yours and the three of you had watched Miss March. ( "five days. thats all id want you to go through, is five days. hell, throw my shit out in two.")

When you think about it, you kind of feel something like drowning.

You're supposed to go around to Dave's at 12, because your dad is letting you have a few days off of school and Bro doesn't want to clean out Dave's room by himself. "Isn't this moving a little fast?" you ask on the phone, words all weird and wobbly with feeling like you're about to cry. "I mean, it hasn't even been. He's still. Well, there's a chance-"

"Kid," he says, effectively shutting you up, but his voice is so much like Dave's and if you concentrate, you can imagine Dave growing into someone similar to his older brother. (The thought of him white and still and cold is too much for you and you can't stop thinking about the fact that you're going to have to attend his funeral.) "He's not comin' out of that coma. We both know that. I'd like to respect his wishes in whatever ways I can from here on out."

You aim for not letting your voice wobble from then on and manage something on the edge of your words that reminds you of glass shattering.

Texas is surprisingly cold, you think when you have to rub your hands together on the way across to Dave's apartment block, but maybe that's because you've never really done this walk without every intention to see your best friend. The realisation sets in cold, again, and they say that dealing with death is meant to get easier once you come to terms with it, but you swear you come to terms with it at least five times a day and it still hurts worse than the last every single time you think how you'll never see him shoot that cocky grin of his your way again.

Bro answers while you're still in the process of knocking. You look into his shades, and wonder if his eyes are red and puffy under them. Then again, yours aren't, but maybe that's because you haven't really cried about it yet. You're still kind of numb to the fact that, right now, Dave is completely dead save for the monotonous bleep of a heart monitor he's apparently hooked up too. "He's never going to wake up, Mr Strider, we're sorry for your loss. Would you like us to pull the plug?"

Everything sounds really surreal, and people have kind of been having to repeat themselves twice for you to register what they've said at all. Your dad thinks it's strange that you haven't cried, but by now he's probably ruled it out as a pride thing or a shock thing. Really, you think, you're not crying because though it has hit you like a tonne of bricks so many times, it hasn't really  _hit_ you yet. You understand the concept of never being able to watch Dave breathe again, but you have yet to experience the real thing.

(Bro invited you to come down with him Friday morning to pull the plug. You stayed in your bedroom for an hour staring blankly at your wall before you let him know that you didn't want to.)

Bro pulls you wordlessly into a firm, vehement hug upon answering the door, and when he pulls away he's close enough that you see drying tear tracks on his cheeks start to become wet again.

"I haven't touched anything yet," he says in answer to a question you never even asked, "because I figured you'd have a better idea of what he'd want us to keep around and what he'd think was worthless."

You think that Dave would probably just light the room on fire and watch it burn if he was here to help you guys, but you don't say so.

You and Bro walk in silence to Dave's bedroom.

There's police tape around his bed, blood looking like a faint chalky outline of a dead person where it's seeped through the covers and run around him. Looking at it makes you want to be sick, so you make a point of not doing it, and you start on Dave's closet.

The process is a little easier than you'd thought it would be- just a little- and mostly involves going through Dave's clothes and throwing out old unfinished homework assignments. Bro says you're welcome to keep anything you want. You say you don't want anything, but when he leaves the room, you fish Dave's hoodie, the red one he used to wear almost every day, out of the pile of discarded clothes and stuff it into your bag. You're a little closer to crying when you do this. 

It's probably not a very big secret that you had some... less than heterosexual feelings towards Dave, at multiple points in your friendship. You grew up just disregarding those romantic moments between the two of you as perfectly normal, you were just close, it was fine, no big deal, up until around the time you turned 15 and realised you liked the smell of Dave's hair more than any straight boy should, and the way his eyes looked up close used to make you cry at night when all the lights were out and it was silent enough for you to think about loving him.

It was never an issue you touched on, and you don't think Dave ever knew, but when Bro comes back into the room and casts the briefest glances between where the hoodie had been and where your bag is now slightly bulging, you don't doubt that he did.

"Do you want a drink or anything?" he asks, politely avoiding calling you out on taking Dave's clothes.

You shake your head no.

"If you promise not to tell your dad, I can accidentally leave a bottle of Smirnoff in your general vicinity."

You think about it for a second, and then nod.

He goes to 'accidentally' find you vodka, and you go back to sorting through Dave's closet.

When you find the box, it's completely by accident. You weren't actually planning on going all the way to the back, because that's where people usually hid their most private things (you used to keep your journal back there) and even now, going through his stuff feels disrespectful and weird. You find it when you're tugging free a shirt that fell long ago from its hanger and got caught underneath a pile of junk, and it yanks forward with the fabric, making the sound of paper rattling against cardboard.

Later, you justify to yourself that, if it hadn't said your name on it, scrawled in black marker, then you would have put it back. Eagerly, you tear into it, brows pulled together and scenarios playing through. Either you left some clothes at his place once, and he never got around to giving them back to you- which is likely- or this is something entirely else, and...

It's full of letters.

You stare. You blink at it. They're set out neatly, two impressively large stacks sitting beside each other. Each one is sealed flawlessly in an envelope. Each one is numbered, and addressed to you.

Tentatively, you reach forward and take #1.

 

john.    
okay. so. john.  
wow this is so fucking stupid why am i doing this why why why this is so lame holy fucking shit  
first of all just fyi ftr i could have started this with 'dear john' and laughed about it for seven centuries and the fact that im not doing that proves how serious this is, so there   
how do i even start this  
john.  
i am writing to you today a letter that you will most likely never ever ever get to read, as per the advice of one snarky lalonde when i came to her seeking wisdom last night  
as i usually do in times like these but youll see this time had more purpose as apparently were ""getting somewhere"" with my feelings  
i am in love with you.  
there  
okay so like  
i have been in love with you since we were 13 at least  
actually i think i remember the specific day it started  
we were swimming in harleys pool  
you were wearing this   
ugly neon blue thing  
as shorts  
like a complete tool  
and i was laughing at you about it and then you started splashing me, and when you stopped you were kind of just  
there  
just close  
and i realised id never actually noticed how fucking gorgeous you were  
and yeah  
ruined my fucking life man so   
fuck you and your fuckin gorgeous face  
sigh  
anyway  
im writing this because rose thinks i should get more in touch with my feelings  
so here goes i guess  
gettin in touch with the   
feely feelins  
mm  
since then i think it was all downhill  
this fuckin horrible roller coaster ride where there are no seatbelts and the wheels make these rattly noises that make you think the piece of shit is broken  
and it only goes down  
but like  
sometimes  
the rollercoaster does this really violent skid thing where you think holy shit im gonna fucking die but then you dont you just continue to go down and its like  
oh  
thats just about the best metaphor i can think of to sum up my feelings for john egbert  
so when we were fourteen and we werent talking for a while  
remember when we had that stupid fight about jade because you thought i liked her and i asked why you even cared and you said it was because she was like your sister and i  
accused you of wanting to fuck her i think  
it was dumb anyway i dont even remember it  
but anyway id been having these dreams  
these really really stupid dreams  
and it started out as like  
as not a big deal  
like hey im a strider i can deal with a few nightmares here and there whatever  
but then i started dreaming about you  
and thered be these nights  
where i would wake up, from having had this meaningless dream of you  
whether you were just there in the middle of the nightmare or you *were* the nightmare didnt matter because all that mattered was that you were there in the dream at all  
and i would be like  
okay  
im fine  
and move on with my day  
but then i would kind of think of you at the most inconvenient times throughout the day  
not necessarily good or bad connotations of you or anything  
i wouldnt be actively pining or actively resenting  
youd kind of just be there in my thoughts  
and id see you in school and  
shit  
shit it was horrible  
youd do this thing where youd look at me when you thought i couldnt see  
and youd look so sincere and sorry like you wanted to come over and talk to me  
and i wished you would  
but instead youd just look back down before i could make eye contact with you  
and then if we did, youd scowl  
like you werent just watching me with those crazy sick bambi eyes of yours  
so id see you and id think of the dream  
of you standing amongst all of these bones or all of this blood  
my brother with a sword rammed through his chest and youd be there touching my shoulder  
this horrible desolate land thats like a twisted surreal version of the floor is lava with this god awful disturbed ticking noise like the fucking alligator from peter pan is following me around constantly and youd be kind of in the distance watching me with this smarmy smile on your face  
you were always there  
and then after a while the dreams got to a point where theyd give me this horrible anxiety and i couldnt deal with them anymore  
id wake up more than one night in a sweat  
just shaking like crazy and secretly wishing i had parents to go and cry to because i didnt want to disappoint bro  
or like  
you  
i used to wish that maybe one time id wake up and youd just be   
*there*  
next to me in my bed shooshing me and calming me down from the nightmare kissing my face telling me you loved me  
fuck  
sorry  
but the fact that you were in the dreams somehow made them worse at first  
like i couldnt trust you, like you were the nightmare and the thing i had to get away from  
and then i started to really miss you  
youd hang out with jade and  
shit i remember i actually thought at one point that the two of you were dating just to get my goat or something  
but anyway i missed you a whole lot so i thought that maybe the dreams werent so bad  
so i started enjoying them  
when you were there anyway  
it was kind of messed up but id be standing amongst all of these dead bodies  
then id realise they were me  
and id start to panic but then youd just be there  
hand on my arm or smile on your face  
and id feel a lot better  
so it was a coping mechanism for a while  
im not saying that thats why i loved you or anything  
no the dreams werent your fault or i didnt fall for you because you were helping me deal or anything  
i just wanted to let you know that you helped even when you werent actively helping i guess  
this is dumb  
until next time i pour my heart out, yo  
-dstrider

You stare, unblinkingly, at the letter in your hands, until your eyes feel tired and you realise Bro's standing in the entrance of the room watching you. Slowly, your eyes drift to the box full of letters, and then back to the one in your hand. You look at Bro.

He asks, "Whatcha got there?"

"Letters," you answer, and then feel your cheeks heat up. (But you don't feel like crying, not yet, you aren't going to cry here.) "I think Dave left me some letters. There are, um, quite a lot of them."

"Oh," he says, eyes moving to the box. "I don't suppose he-"

"Left you any?" John says, chewing his bottom lip. "I'll let you know if I find any."

Bro nods. "Cool."

"Sorry."

"S'okay. You still want the booze?"

So you spend the rest of your day like that, drinking hard liquor in the company of your dead best friend's older brother, and some part of it feels distantly warm. (Or maybe that's just the burn of the vodka.) Your chest is all heavy and hot and you smile when Bro makes jokes, laugh once, you think, and go home later more than a little tipsy with the remainder of the bottle tucked away in your bag. Bro never said you could take it, but you figure he won't mind. 

Your dad tries to talk to you, but in the interest of not letting him know how drunk you are, you mutter that you're tired and don't feel like talking and take the box of letters to your room, closing the door (but not locking the door) behind you.

Belatedly, as you are taking the next one out, you wonder how many there are.

[j](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLGiimdaUzk&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn&index=61)ohn.  
today was fucking awful  
i feel like i should let you know whats actually going on at the moment  
as in the moment of me writing the letter not the ~future~ where you arent reading this letter  
a week and a half ago bro took me to this big fancy white walled hospital place  
yes i know what a mental health care building is but for the sake of this store were gonna call it derse because the place was scary as hell and the chick at receptions last name was derse i think  
they diagnosed me with depression  
pretty severe by the sounds of things because my psychiatrist dude had to talk to bro alone and he got all tight lipped and tight jawed when he came out and theyre putting me on medication so  
i dont really want to take it  
i want to get better i dont want artificial happiness and anyway i heard they make you all numb and crap  
youre helping  
i really mean that i swear i do  
more than anything  
more than the drugs or the dudes with the fancy degrees in the white walled room who think theyre better than me  
youre helping  
because today when those two assholes  
gamzee and someone i think  
were whispering about my scars and i freaked out because i could have sworn my sleeves never rode up around them  
you stood up for me  
you told them that they should stop being stupid and that if i had scars they were probably just from strifing with my brother  
what did you call it  
"really cool platonic bro sparring" i think  
jeez youre a derp  
but it made me want to cry in front of everybody and afterwards i just wanted to pull you away where i could talk to you alone and wrap my arms around you real tight  
tell you thank you  
cry into your shoulder for a bit  
youd be so polite about it wouldnt mention that i was crying even though we were both obviously aware  
because you kind of get it  
i mean you dont  
i dont think youve ever self harmed but  
you get it anyway  
because you get me  
god this sounds so gay i dont even care  
i also kind of wanted to take you home and sit you on my bed and straddle your lap  
kiss you real hard   
because im not good with words so   
i figure id be better at using my body  
conveying the words i cant say to you in the gestures i make  
cant say "im sorry im a shit friend" so id kiss your neck until you sighed all dreamy  
cant say "hey man ive been in love with you for nearly three years now" so id suck your dick  
yknow  
normal stuff  
at any rate if you do ever end up reading this i just want you to know that i love you for being you and for standing up for me even if you dont really understand what youre standing up for  
yeah  
-dave

When you're finished this letter, you check the time, and realise you're exhausted. You also realise that this is about the time in your day where you'd shoot Dave a goodnight message on pesterchum. (So you do, and it's all in lowercase and without punctuation like he writes, like you're whispering.)

And then you curl up on your side with the second letter on your bedside table, the world shifting to black like it always does.


	2. Chapter 2

[B](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEVS1KY-exY&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn&index=72)right and early next morning, once your dad has left for work and most kids your age are heading off to another normal day of school, you tear open the third letter.

After tossing and turning through a poor night's sleep, you're more than eager to start on the next letters-- and you counted, there are fifty three in total-- tearing into #3 with a certain level of ferocity.

You're just about to start reading it when your phone buzzes.

There is a horrible, sickeningly hopeful moment in which you wonder if it's Dave, replying to the goodnight message you left. (That he never replied.) The realisation, first that it's only Rose and second that he's dead, hits you like a bucket of icy water. You're quick to wipe all expression from your face. 

(Kind of like a Strider, and you wonder, belatedly, if Dave would be proud, which is another thought that you have to quickly kill, lest it make you burst into tears.)

\--tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB]--

TT: Hello, John.   
TT: You're not at school again, I hope you're well.   
TT: How are things?   
EB: hey rose.   
EB: things are okay, i guess.   
EB: no they're not, holy shit, that was the biggest lie.   
EB: things are awful.   
TT: Do you want to talk about it?   
EB: my best friend fucking killed himself what is there to talk about?!   
TT: John, I understand that you and Dave were   
TT: Close   
TT: We all love Dave, and this is affecting all of us.   
TT: There's no need to be rude, I just want to help.   
EB: i'm sorry.   
TT: You're forgiven.   
TT: Is your father letting you take a few days off to grieve by yourself?   
EB: pretty much, yeah.   
EB: he's been pretty torn up about the whole thing too actually   
EB: actually i'm glad you're here, i needed to talk to you.   
TT: Go ahead.   
EB: alright   
EB: well   
EB: yesterday i went over to help bro with some of dave's stuff, and i was cleaning his room, and....   
EB: i found a box full of letters addressed to me.   
TT: Oh dear.   
TT: Have you read any of them?   
EB: i read two   
EB: and in the first one, he kind of mentions that it was your idea?   
EB: i just want to know what was going on with that.   
TT: John, you are aware that Dave honed romantic feelings towards you, correct?   
EB: i am now!!   
TT: Right.   
TT: My aplogies.   
TT: You really weren't aware at all prior to reading the letter?   
EB: well...   
EB: i sort of suspected, a couple of times   
EB: but mostly i just figured it was wishful thinking and i was imaginging things.   
TT: Wishful thinking.   
TT: John, did you perhaps have feelings in return for Dave?   
EB: ....   
EB: yeah.   
TT: Despite previous claims that you weren't "a homosexual"?   
TT: If you don't mind my prying.   
EB: no, it's fine, it's just   
EB: i don't know   
EB: i think i sort of said that at time mostly to let karkat down easily   
EB: but also because   
EB: i was still really confused about everything.   
EB: i know there's nothing *wrong* with being gay, but that doesn't change the fact that...   
EB: i always just thought that i wasn't, you know?   
EB: i always imagined finding a nice wife and having kids and...   
EB: and that was it!   
EB: but then i started liking dave and   
EB: yeah.   
TT: I see.   
TT: Well, God knows he could have done with that information a little earlier.   
EB: look, i know i fucked up, okay?   
EB: that his death is probably partially my fault   
EB: oh god oh shit it's my fault isn't it   
EB: i didn't tell him   
EB: i could have just   
EB: i could have *been* there for him at least and i fucking wasn't because i'm a terrible friend   
EB: i didn't even notice when i said "see you tomorrow" and he just said "bye" oh shit oh fuck   
TT: John, calm down.   
TT: It is *not* your fault.   
TT: I really don't care what your reasoning is, but it's not, alright?   
TT: Dave had his own problems, and they had nothing to do with you.   
TT: Please don't blame yourself for this, that's the last thing anyone needs right now.   
EB: i   
EB: ok.   
EB: i'm sorry.   
TT: Now. You were saying about the letters?   
EB: oh, right.   
EB: i just...   
EB: you knew, right?   
EB: that he liked me?   
EB: and that he was writing me letters.   
TT: I did, that is correct.   
EB: why didn't you tell me?   
TT: John.   
TT: Dave is entitled to his own privacy, don't you think?   
TT: If a friend comes to me and confides in me and trusts me enough to tell me a secret, the last thing I'm going to do is go and breach that trust.   
TT: Dave begged me not to tell you, so I didn't.   
TT: From what I understand, he never even planned on giving you the letters.   
TT: They were a coping mechanism, both a way to express his feelings about you and his feelings about what was going on in his own mind.   
EB: ok, i think i understand.   
EB: i'm sorry, you're a good friend.   
EB: you should probably get to class soon   
EB: i'm gonna read the rest of dave's letters.   
TT: John, I'd really think that choice through if I were you.   
EB: what, why?   
TT: Dave's problems weren't all petty and easy going.   
TT: I have a feeling that those letters aren't going to be all romantic gestures and love confessions. Some of what was going through his mind was...   
TT: Fairly dark, I assume.   
TT: To put it as lightly as humanly possible.   
TT: He wouldn't even talk to me about it; those letters were the only times he'd be honest about a lot of what he was going through.   
TT: I strongly advise you think twice before you jump into reading them.   
EB: thanks, but i think i'm okay.   
EB: i want to know.   
EB: about what he was going through, anyway.   
EB: i don't want to ignore it and never know what was going through my best friend's mind before he killed himself just because i'm scared.   
TT: Alright.   
TT: Good luck, John. Everyone misses you. I'm here if you want to talk, okay?   
EB: ok.   
EB: you're a good friend, rose.   
EB: wait i didn't ask   
EB: how are you dealing?   
TT: Me?   
TT: Absolutely fucking terribly.   
TT: The only reason I'm not home right now is because I don't trust myself in a house full of alcohol with an alcoholic supervisor while the only thing I want to do is immerse myself in complete numbness.   
TT: I miss him so much, John.   
EB: i know   
EB: everyone does   
TT: Yeah.   
EB: dad keeps saying he's gonna come out of the coma   
TT: He's not.   
EB: i know.   
TT: I have to go to class.   
TT: I'll talk to you later.   
EB: yeah, ok   
EB: see you, rose.

\--tentacleTherapist [TT] has ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB]--

You tuck your phone back into your pocket, turning your attention back to the letter. Something about having everything confirmed with Rose makes it all the more unsettling. You go to pick it up, pause, and reach for the half empty bottle of vodka in your bag from yesterday.

dear john   
see i did it that time didnt i aaahaha   
shit im funny   
today was better   
i mean it wasnt particularly good or anything   
but it also wasnt bad   
wasnt one of those days where i actually consider jumping in front of a train so thats a good day in my books   
today was good because today we skipped school   
you, me, jade and rose   
we were heading to first period   
which was math   
which is gross   
and rose goes   
"to hell with this, who wants to skip"   
jade laughs like shes kidding and im all   
hell fuckin yeah sister lets do this   
so jade looks like she wants to change her mind and thinks for a second before being all like "yeah okay i'm up for it"   
so by this point i figure youre gonna wimp out on us and go to class because i mean no hate man thats your thing youre the good one you get perfect grades without even having to try and youre too scared to even make snide comments about the teachers im cool with that   
but this time you just   
you turn to me   
and with this big smile on your face youre like   
"okay, if we're doing this, we should totally go to the mall, because i haven't been to the mall in forever"   
you fucking dork   
you fucking   
adorable   
perfect   
fuckable little dork you   
and you keep this stupid huge grin on your face all excited to be up and going to the mall and   
shit   
i dont even like the mall man and i was so ready to go like hells yeah lets all be gettin on santas magical fuckin sleigh and booking it to the mall   
so we did   
i mean not the sleigh part but yeah we went to the mall and it was so much fun   
we bought these five dollar outfits from the thrift store because jade pointed out that if anyone saw us in uniform theyd probably know we were skipping   
and yknow normally id be like pssht what the fuck ever man whats bro gonna do take away my xbox for a week whatever ill just sleep and write these dumb letters   
but i didnt want you guys to get in trouble so i agreed to it   
plus the outfits were really fun   
rose in this ridiculous purple prom dress and jade in the huge ugly christmas sweater   
i of course kept it totally classy and wore a skirt because whoa who would seriously pass up the opportunity to wear a plaid skirt   
i could see jade eyeing it too what was i meant to do let her get it   
no   
i have dignity to uphold   
but you   
you wore this like   
ugly pair of jeans but thats no the point here   
the shirt you picked was hilarious at first because it said porn star on it and it was this hideous baby blue thing and wow man    
irony at its finest i was so proud of you   
but then you bought it and put it on and realised too late that it was too small for you   
fuck   
fuck youre gorgeous you know that   
it cut off like right before your belly button and the jeans rode kind of low and    
ghwioabgewhs;kigbwe;lhiwhebwi   
it should not be legal to look that good in such ridiculous clothes   
but you did   
do   
ughhhhh   
so we all hung out and ate crappy mall pizza    
i kicked your ass at dance dance revolution btw   
and then school finished so we all had to change back into our dumb uniforms and walk back home tell mommy and daddy all about how teacher taught us all this new information    
like wow so much information my brain cannot even *process* this shit whats for dinner   
you dont really live near me and still when we all split up and went our separate ways you kept walking with me   
so i was like   
"yo dude are you coming over"   
and you were like "nah i can't i have homework"   
so   
okay   
im all "why are you walking this way then, your house is pretty much not even in this direction"   
and you just shrug and say that you feel like walking with me and its not that much out of the way   
john do you even know what you do to me   
youre my best friend ive known you since i was like in diapers and i *still* get these bullshit fuckin butterflies every time you do something cute   
so we walk and make light conversation like always   
you bitch about vriska a little bit and i pretend not to hate her   
i dont hate her a lot just   
she very obviously likes you and shes a bit of a cunt if were being honest i really hope you two do not end up together   
i mean i want you to be happy but please be happy with someone else   
(please be happy with me ha ha what)   
and then anyway we get to my door and youre like oh ill walk you to your door like its not a big deal   
and then we get there and kind of just stop   
and it feels weird and i realise   
this is just like a date   
like at the end of the clichéd date where the guy walks the girl to the door and then they hesitate as they wait for one or the other to make a move to initiate a kiss   
and i really wanted to kiss you   
you waited around for about a minute but i swear it felt like an hour and i was legit ten seconds away from just totally macking on you dude i swear   
but in the end you kind of shake yourself out of this daze and do your whole "bye dave have a nice night!!!" thing   
even though we both know youre gonna talk to me on pesterchum later you act like youre not gonna see me for fifty years   
noooot that i am complaining i mean if im gonna complain about something its not gonna be that   
and then you leave   
today was good because i was with you guys and i didnt think about dying as much as i do usually and bro bought home chinese for dinner and watched tv with me for an hour   
and i know hes only doing it because hes scared ill kill myself or something but its nice anyway its nice that hes spending time   
with me even though he works two jobs to pay for all of our shit   
its nice   
today was nice

You place the third letter down, pursing your lips and blinking a little stinging wetness from your eyes; just stinging wetness, not tears, not yet. That wasn't as bad as Rose had said: actually kind of ridiculously sweet, you think, your stomach clenching violently at the memory of that day. You'd been thinking about kissing Dave, too, actually, in that moment on his doorstep; you remember him going very quite and you remember looking at his lips shyly a couple of times and wishing you could just man up and kiss him. But then you'd started thinking about not wanting to ruin the friendship, and also the very real possibility of rejectment, so you hadn't, you'd just gone home.

Presently, you feel like hitting yourself.

_Stupid._

You take another swig from the bottle, feeling like hitting yourself for all your previous stupidity, and reach for the fourth letter.

[e](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LE1Bd_wX1M&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn&index=87)gbuns   
i wish i was really getting better but i am really really not   
today is what rose calls a "relapse"   
i havent   
hadnt   
self harmed since that day at derse when they told me i was clinically depressed and bro almost cried    
but today was hard again   
gamzee made a comment about my shades making me look like a fag   
and his buddy or whatever   
that dude who sort of dresses like him   
are they fucking   
i bet theyre fucking   
kurloz thats it   
gamzee and kurloz snickered every time i walked past and i started panicking thinking theyd done something or were planning something   
nothing happened but still   
i felt like shit by the end of the day   
all i wanted to do was go home and talk to bro and take my meds and cry for a bit   
maybe go kick the shit out of some training dummies on the roof for a bit   
binge my emotions all into anger and release them in a positive way or whatever   
but you kept asking me if i was okay   
and i wouldnt talk about it so you kept going   
dave dave seriously tell me im worried about you do you want me to come over after school whats wrong is it gamzee again is he being a dick   
and i went to walk away but you tried to pull me back and   
you squeezed my wrist   
right over some of the old scars   
it didnt really hurt it just   
i freaked out because it reminded me of how often i used to cut myself there because it made me feel better and how long itd been since i last did   
so i yanked my hand away from you and told you to leave me alone and just stormed home   
which was a bad idea because then i just felt worse for snapping at you   
im actually kind of glad i didnt turn back to look at your face because i dont know what id have done if youd looked all sad and lost   
like a kicked puppy   
i hate you yknow that   
no i dont   
anyway i came home and bro wasnt even there   
hadnt even left a note so i assume he was at one of his club gigs or day jobs or something   
and i just   
i should have gone out to the roof straight away   
but i didnt   
i went to my room   
and i slammed the door   
and i went to the third drawer down because thats where i keep my razor and   
yeah   
theres something really calming about all that pain i guess   
because i can control it   
and the blood on my skin is really pretty and relaxing and feels almost sort of like an achievement   
like ive finally done something right   
havent fucked up this one and now ive got a mark to prove it   
i felt like i could have kept going but i knew i didnt need to so i put it away and soaked up the blood and pulled my sleeves down   
i was gonna go to bed but you pestered me    
and get this   
*you* said sorry   
you   
who did nothing wrong   
so i burst into tears and told you that it was fine and that i was sorry for freaking out on you and that i was fine   
even though i had to keep stopping because i couldnt see past all the tears in my eyes i told you i was fine   
im sorry   
i say that a lot but i really mean it   
im sorry you have to put up with me basically   
-dave.

You don't feel like reading the fifth immediately after you put down the fourth, so instead you push it away from you and turn your attention to the bottle, trying not to puke between chugs. Your only real goal is to finish the bottle, even though just looking at it gives you a headache and you know your dad will figure it out eventually. You're almost finished when you give up, tipping the remaining contents down the sink and discarding the bottle in the bottom of your neighbour's trash.

Your head is already spinning by the time you get back inside, but you don't care enough to be concerned.

Hey, maybe you'll get serious alcohol poisoning and wind up in hospital next to Dave.

You giggle at the thought. That would be so... so...  _ironic,_ you think the appropriate word is, and giggle again. _  
_

Then, you take a deep, deep breath, and man up enough to read some more letters.


	3. Chapter 3

[Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7-CTn_PmUo&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn&index=81)ou remember reading somewhere that it's unhealthy to form an obsession with something in times of great trauma or stress, but that's exactly what happens. You form a sort of routine: wake up, tell dad you're okay, read Dave's letters.

It's probably unhealthy; shit, it  _is_ unhealthy, and you know it's unhealthy because soon after you spend the morning of your Third Day of Mourning with a hangover, you get up to go raid the better half of your father’s liquor cabinet.

You think, he won’t notice.

You think, he’s going to notice.

You think, I really don’t care if he notices.

You contemplate locking your door on your way back into your room, but decide against it at the last minute. You never lock your door. It’s always been just a general rule in this house that you’ve followed; you’re not allowed to lock your door, because in the event something goes wrong, your dad needs to be able to access your bedroom.

You wonder if Dave locked his room when he killed himself.

It’s warm out today, the sun shining obnoxiously through your curtains, so you shut them tightly and crawl back under your covers with the next letter—letter #31—and your phone to use as a light.

john   
today i thought i might be getting better   
the doc says that this means im 'in recovery' from depression or something   
lalonde says that this means im getting closer to having One Last Break Down or something   
dumb   
i tried asking her about it and she just said that usually when   
like   
is going through depression   
and is generally suicidal i guess   
though ive never told her whether im suicidal or not so fuck knows what shes basing this shit on   
will usually seem like theyre getting better until something really big happens   
that forces all of their emotions to come out into the open at once   
she said when her mom was recovering from all that alcoholism she went through when we were 13 she got better until the One Last Break Down   
where she was happy and all that noise until one day rose came home from school to mama lalonde trashing their house and screaming at the top of her lungs   
i really hope i dont trash the apartment bro would probably kill me   
maybe ill come trash your house   
ahahahahaaa   
your dad would never let me over again   
and we cant have that because shit man   
today was great   
today i came over to your house and it was great   
like   
some people have good days   
and then theres those jolly assholes who have """great""" days   
like those santa-claus-on-prozac-at-disney-land-getting-laid assholes   
my day was better than their day   
because   
dun dun duuuun   
(cue dramatic music)   
(cue faint beatboxing)   
today we almost kissed   
(crowd cheering)   
okay so   
we didnt *actually* almost kiss   
like there was no dramatic lean in doki doki wont meet your eyes crap   
but   
okay let me start from the beginning   
i mean no shit dave where else would you start but   
so it was a saturday today which is already a major fuck yes in my books   
i didnt have plans but it wasnt even that big of a deal today i mean what respectable cool kid actually has plans on a saturday pfft friends are for weenies   
i was planning on dicking around on the internet maybe messin with my turntables staying in and playing video games with my bro or something   
id only been up for five minutes when you called   
said you were bored   
said we should do something   
which was sort of a big deal because   
like i dont know if you know this about yourself but youre a huge prude   
i dont know if its because daddy egbert wants his little princess under lock and key all the time or if you genuinely have to make plans a week in advance for your own weird comfort thing but i rarely ever get to "just" do things with you   
because its always this whole big parade with dad crashing his noisy obnoxious fatherly cymbals together while my poor flustered sense of self esteem tries to ask you on a platonic outing in the least gay way possible   
so yeah   
imagine my surprise   
up five minutes   
boom   
hot piece of egderp ass on the other end of the line all cute and excitable and shit   
youre actually adorable shh dont tell rose i said that she doesnt know i have feelings   
and youre all   
"omg dave im soooo bored"   
and im all   
"cool man what do you want me to do about it"   
and yOURE ALL   
"i miss you dave"   
and im all   
shit   
doki   
fuck   
oh whoops i spilled my heart all over the floor haha fuck help me clean this up someone   
so i play it cool obviously because thats the kinda guy i am im suave as fuck   
"youre a loser you saw me yesterday at school and youll see me again on monday go write in your diary about me or something if youre so in love with me"   
which is ironic because im practically writing about you in my diary right now   
itd be weirder if i wasnt addressing it all to you like youre my actual diary   
so yeah im actually a huge dick   
i dont even know why youve put up with me until now to be honest   
but for whatever whacked up reason you seem to think im actually a genuine person or something   
because instead of calling me out on being rude you just   
do your cute little laugh giggle thing   
and say   
"yeah yeah i'm a huge gay. now come hang out with me!!"   
thats me imitating your typing style am i you yet   
so i agree all nonchalant like sure man what do you wanna do ive got nothing better to do anyway despite being a super popular guy pssht whatever   
and you   
sassy little cockpunch you   
probably fluttering your eyelashes and cocking your hip or something idfk   
say   
"ive got something planned but its a surprise"   
fucking   
what   
the plot thickens am i right   
so i hang up the phone and get dressed and try not to drown myself in deodorant because probably the last thing i need is to look like im trying too hard   
(which i am)   
i wait for you to come and pick me up   
and then you do and you look so fucking gorgeous in your shorts and your shirt and your glasses and oh my god   
youre the biggest dork   
i dont know what it is about you im so hopelessly in love with but maybe its all of you because   
shit   
i cant even look at you anymore without my chest feeling like its gonna burst   
your hair was all ruffled and your cheeks were flushed like youd actually run up to my apartment   
god   
god   
shit   
i hate you   
so we leave the apartment to go to your "surprise" and you actually follow through on the whole mystery thing like you wont even give me any clues to where were going and just giggle every time i ask   
you take us down the side of the main road that separates our places and through to the back of it with all the trees and the dense foliage and shit   
the closest thing to a forest our part of beautiful beautiful texas has to offer   
start leading me through there   
so of course im all "dude what the hell are you taking me out here to kill me"   
and youre all "to seduce you actually"   
haha lol have sex with me john please seriously   
FINALLY we get to this little clearing-type thing   
and its got this big sorta   
cave i guess   
i dont think ive ever seen you so excited it was so cute   
i made fun of you but it was actually kind of awesome   
like this secret place in the middle of all those trees   
kind of felt like it was just you and me   
like no one could find us there   
especially when we went into the cave and it got late and we just sat there in the complete dark talking more than we had in what feels like ages   
today you opened up to me about all the pressure your dad puts on you and   
shit   
about how you used to think that maybe his life would be a lot easier if you were just dead   
how sometimes it feels like nobobdy wants you around anyway   
and i understood   
i understood so well fuck i just wanted to hold you and kiss you and cry and tell you how badly i understood   
but i didnt   
because im a wuss   
so instead i just moved in really close and told you that you meant a lot to me and that i wouldnt be able to handle it if you died   
you laughed at me and said you werent thinking like that anymore but thanks anyway like it was no big deal but i think you might have been crying   
i felt bad for not spilling my heart out to you too so when it got quiet i said that i was gay   
you just laughed and said "and i wear glasses" and i punched you in the shoulder and it was real fuckin nice   
so we stayed like that for what seemed like forever   
like in the books i read and the movies i watch where "it feels like forever" and it actually did   
it was all normal right up until you started talking about how youd never been kissed and were scared youd be bad at it and i (jokingly???) was like "i could totally teach you man"   
and you didnt say anything you just kinda hummed thoughfully like you were actually taking it into consideration so i leaned in a bit and i was like "im gonna do it"   
and you just hummed again so i leaned in even more and was like "im gonna do it man im gonna get you up and all kindsa pregnant on the mouth here i go goodbye johns lip virginity" so you started giggling a bit but you werent telling me to STOP so i leaned in even fucking closer like wow it was crazy it was pretty much pitch black but i could sort of see the outline of your face and feel your breath on my lips and it was so tempting to just reach out and trace my fingertips across your cheek see if you were actually there or something   
so i go "im totally gonna kiss you"   
and you   
no shit   
say "go ahead"   
i chickened out   
because you were probably just making a joke at my expense like daring me to do it because you knew i wouldnt   
and im not an idiot   
so i backed off and you laughed at me and we went back to making fun of each other and just talking like two bros and   
god damn it   
i sort of wish id actually just kissed you like just to see your reaction   
who knows maybe id have been an amazing kisser and youd have swooned and fallen for me right there   
probably not though   
most likely youd have just pushed me off and laughed and called me a gross homo or something though idk   
so then later it started to get really dark and we had to go home and i was disappointed but like whatever at least you were walking me there   
now this was some scurry ass forest yo   
so   
like two grown ass men   
we held hands   
actually you initiated it   
you grabbed my hand in yours and whispered that you were "kind of spooked" (your actual words holy shit) and didn't want to lose me   
gaaaaaaaay   
but hey im not about to turn down some genuine egbert tlc so i was all up for the handholding business   
entertained thoughts of intertwining our fingers and leaning real close against you but suffered in the well worn silence of platonic slightly-sweaty bro hand holding   
ugh   
so on the way home i was like you know that im actually gay right like i wasnt just making a stupid joke and you laughed at me and said that jade had told you   
that witch   
and then you said that you didnt care and we were still bros and it didnt change our friendship one bit   
i really really wish it did though   
then we got back to my place and you ended up calling your dad and asking if you could stay for dinner so we had pizza and watched con air for the millionth fucking time   
i complain but that movie is actually starting to grow on me if not only because you love it so much   
shh also dont tell rose she would never let me live it down   
im so in love with you its so gross   
shits embarrassing   
anyway today has been a really incredible day and right now i am actually not thinking about dying and for once would actually be genuinely upset if a plane crashed through my roof and killed me so yeah   
thank you   
for   
uh   
making my life better and shit   
christ this is lame   
strider out

Your eyes feel wet when you put the letter down, and belatedly, you realise you're smiling like an idiot. Because you remember that day, you remember it just like he'd written it, only slightly different from your head; you're mad, now, because you do remember him joking about kissing you, and you do remember egging him on, although you had slightly different intentions to what he'd suspected.

Shit, and if you'd just leant in.

You sigh, feeling all jittery and stupid and numb, still unable to cry despite the feelings bubbling up in you, and reach for the next letter.

 

jawn   
right now   
i am very mad at you   
well   
okay   
not at you   
well sort of at you but its not your fault i guess im just being dumb and jealous and   
ughhhh   
this is all my fault   
so the last few days have been hectic af yo like shit has been blowing out of the roof   
apparently my being openly gay towards you was enough inspiration that rose and jade had to like   
explicitly tell me over lunch today that i should get a boyfriend   
so im like shit dont look at john dont look at john dont look at john   
and of course i look at you because im an idiot   
and you just look back all curious and innocent and raise an eyebrow when i swallow and look back down   
i tried to play it off cool and said that i enjoyed being a free man and didnt need no fella tyin me down but apparently the two flighty broads were having none of that because rose pretty much insisted   
/insisted/   
that i at least try flirting with someone   
which made me feel like something was up because she KNOWS i like you   
and you and jade were just grinning so it took me a while to realise that you were all probably just being dicks   
you giggle at me like an asshole and say yeah dave omg go flirt with someone itll be so funny   
and i get   
so mad   
because you must realise to some extent, you dick, that i am head over heels   
SMITTEN   
with you   
i dont hide it very well i am a very bad liar despite all claims of being an expert at cool guy impassiveness and you can read me better than anybody else so what the fuck is up   
so i look at you   
all rage contained inside of me and serial killer calm i look at you   
and say   
fine   
and get up and storm across the cafeteria to karkat and solluxs table   
i sit down and sollux is all whath up thrider you look like thit are you and your boyfriend fighting or thomething   
karkats all OH MY GOD YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT OUR FUCKING TABLE FUCK YOU CANT JUST STEAL MY FOOD STOP STEALING MY FOOD DAVE FUCKITY FUCK WAH WAH HUGE BABY   
and im like shh   
my friends are being dicks can i hang out with you guys   
they said yes only if i tell them what the situation is   
so i told them   
and karkat found it really funny for whatever stupid reason   
and then out of nowhere suggested that i pretend to get really pda flirty with one of them   
i want to hate the guy but hes actually pretty cool i understand why youre friends with him   
fuckin genius   
so i agree   
and we start brainstorming this intricate plan for sollux and i to woo everyone with our romance   
it was pretty hard not to laugh ill admit but the time came and we fell into our roles like we were fucking trained actors it was great   
sollux slipped his hand in my back pocket and we went to greet you guys   
sat with you and he laughed at everything i said played with my hair touched my hand a lot the works   
at one point he rubbed at your leg under the table and said oops sorry wrong leg and smiled at me all slutty it was so fuckin funny   
he was just leaning in and laughing at something i was saying and i had my arm around his shoulders when you lost it   
stood up and said you were going for a walk clearly majorly pissed at me   
so i got mad too   
because seriously   
what right do you have to be mad at me   
youre such an attention whore jesus fucking christ if youre not gonna flirt with me youre not allowed to get mad when other people do thats not how it works you asshole   
i continued to be mad at you for fifth and sixth period but id kind of gotten over it and felt sort of bad for being annoying and ott with sol so i was gonna apologize   
but you   
fuckin   
i walked to your locker to see if you wanted to walk home with me and you were just there with this girl   
this smartass bitch with the long black hair that ive seen walking around with the crippled kid and tz a couple of times   
vriska   
man what a huge bitch   
she was laughing this stupid loud obnoxious laugh and you were grinning and talking like you were the bees goddamned knees   
screw you man   
i was about to step in and sweep you off your maiden feet so i could apologize and walk you home and flirt with you in the most subtle way when it happened   
she leaned in and wrote something on your hand and then   
ready   
KISSED YOUR CHEEK   
and walked away   
so you saw me after that and i kind of just turned around and walked the other way   
you followed me all like dave dave wait up oh my god what is your problem   
i so very badly wanted to just go all anime on you and say you are my problem john chan move down and kiss you against the lockers while the cherry blossom petals just float around us   
but alas i did not instead i just ignored you and kept walking   
so then i came home and yeah   
been sitting in my room feeling like shit ever since   
i guess its not your fault   
i mean were not together youre allowed to talk to whoever you want and you were probably just getting her chumhandle for friendly reasons and shes just a psychotic bitch who kisses everybody on the cheek and its whatever   
but i am still so completely hopelessly jealous and i hate it   
i hate feeling like this   
its the worst   
i feel like crap   
i just   
fuck   
i wanted to be able to step in and put my hand in your goddamned back pocket like back off bitch hes mine   
but youre not   
are you?

You feel your lungs expand, then collapse, like they're filling with water, like you're stuck at high tide tied to the ugliest pile of the sharpest twigs on some worn beach. Like Dave is he horizon and he's just watching you.

Angry, you wipe at the barely-there forming tears in your eyes and flop down onto your bed, resisting the urge once, twice, to scream into your pillow. You end up doing it anyway.

Once you're drunk enough to be confident you won't feel much more than a faint pang of longing and loneliness when you think his name, you decide to go for a walk before your dad gets home and leave the house on tipsy, uncertain feet. It's dangerous, you think, giggling nervously when you consider the setting sun and the emptying streets and the fact that you're a small, very drunk, impressionable teenage boy, and how Texas was never very safe to begin with. You don't really care. Let anyone with a gun and a purpose do what they will, you think.

You end up trekking your way through what path you can remember in that opening of foliage along the main road, down to the same cave you took your best friend only two more times since that day; once, when it was the middle of summer and you had nothing better to do, and again at the end of summer when he looked like he was falling apart.

You bring a couple of letters with you, but by the time you find the cave again it's too dark to see them properly and you're cold and a little scared. Now, you think, is when you're meant to gain your senses; realise how terrified you are, how you don't really want to die, and then call your dad crying and asking him to pick you up. It doesn't happen. So you wait for it to happen, sitting against a slightly damp tree trunk and reading Dave's letters until your phone runs out of battery and you don't have a light anymore. You don't actually know how long you're there for, only that you get through five more of the six letters you'd brought with you and by the time you're done, you're still not worried.

You start to make your way home, though, because the moon has long since come out and your dad is probably having a heart attack back at home.

You manage to stumble your way out of the forest some time later, phone heavy and dead in your pocket, and you throw up on the side of the road. Then you sit there for a while, laughing kind of hysterically into your hands. God, if only Dave could see you now. He'd probably make fun of how stupid you're being, make jokes about how bad you are at holding your liquor and how uncool it is to fall into hysterics on the side of the road. After a while, you think you might cry, but you don't, so instead you pick yourself up and walk home. There are police cars when you get there, though, so you change your mind and make your way back the direction you just came. Your dad will be so worried. You don't look both ways when you cross the road again.

So you spend the night there in the cave, uncomfortably propped up against the cold floor and a makeshift pile of plants, and for all you're worth, you actually manage to sleep through the night.

 Bro doesn't ask any questions when you show up at his apartment the next morning, shaking and covered in your own vomit, but then again, he's always been more like a friend to you than a lot of your other friends.

"You go shower, I'll get you some clean clothes and something to eat," he says, stepping out of the doorway so you can walk through. He's always been good at that, too. Not asking a lot of questions. "In the meantime, I'll call your dad, too. Let him know you're alright."

So he called Bro, you think. At least he seemed to know why you'd left the house in the first place. You hope he's okay.

You take your time in the Striders' bathroom, letting the scalding water soothe away your headache and the overwhelming urge to vomit again, and stay under the hot spray of water until your skin is bright red and tingling.

Bro leaves you a change of clothes- Dave's clothes, the arms of his shirt too long for you, but they still smell like him- and you choose not to point out the fact that, yeah, you noticed the boxes of his stuff still sitting around. Because for all his big talk, you know that Dave meant the world to his brother.

Your dad isn't as mad as you thought he would be when you get home; he thanks Bro stiffly, leads you inside, and tells you that you've disappointed him, that's all.

Once upon a time that would have made you cry.

You just tell him, completely sober and lacking any form of emotion, that you would like to go back to school tomorrow.

He tells you that you can but you don't talk to him for the rest of the night.

You don't think you're upset, really, and it takes until you're through two more of Dave's letters to realise that what you're feeling is unmitigated, uncontrollable rage. Serial killer rage, the kind of white-wash anger you see in the eyes of a guy who's two rude waiters away from snapping and holding a whole shopping mall hostage. It scares you how appealing this thought, is, suddenly, but then you reason with yourself to decide that it's probably just that you want to get all of your anger out somehow. You feel trapped. You feel contained. And it's not even that you're mad at your dad, either, though pretending that you were would make it so much easier to put this situation to bed. You're mad at Dave. Horribly mad at Dave, suddenly, and you want to race down to the hospital he's in, yank his lifeless body from all the chords he's hooked up to and beat the absolute shit out of him, punch him until he's coughing up blood and choking your name and in pain and alive. You need him so desperately to be alive. Fuck, and you wouldn't even mind if you never got to hold him, never got to hear his voice scratchy and post-sex at 2 in the morning, never got to hear him whisper that he loved you; you just need him to be alive.

You spend the rest of the day reading his letters, until it's 9 at night and you're starting to get tired. There are two letters left, but you decide against reading them both. (Because then it would really be over, you think, but you don't say any of this out loud. Those really would be the last words you'd ever read of his.) The last ten or so have made you feel nothing but sick, but that's okay, because you feel close to Dave this way; in this messed up way, sure, but you still feel closer to him, with the fact that you kind of know-- or understand the general gist of-- how he felt when he was taking those pieces of metal to his wrists, when he was downing painkillers like they'd make him fly, when he was curled up in bed at 3am trying to ignore how sick his own self-hatred made him. You feel like you might puke, a bit, because over the past ten letters, you feel like you've had to personally watch your best friend go from 'happy' to 'relapse' to 'totally fucking broken'.

And you don't remember what it's like to breathe normally anymore.

 

[j](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CYitiDJPTE&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn&index=155)ohn   
shit man look at that   
i can still write   
ahahaha   
look at that i can still laugh too   
a very talented man i am youd be very lucky to date me   
as if that would ever happen   
ahahaha   
so tbh   
tee bee hay-ch   
to be honest   
today was shit   
literal and actual shit   
i feel   
like my universe   
is actually imploding in on me   
like its inside of me or something   
and its just   
pchoooooooo   
whole world going up in flames   
open my mouth and smoke flies out   
too late to doubt   
striders fuckin broken we really aint jokin three bottles of pills down and hes still chokin   
ahahaha god damn why arent i famous im so talented this is mad crazy talent yo   
fuck   
rose keeps telling me that i use humour as my downfall   
like as a defense mechanism or something   
and im beginning to think that maybe shes right   
it makes sense   
every time i feel like im about to totally break down i just start making fun of you or making dumb inappropriate jokes   
i think youre finally getting sick of it   
getting sick of me   
i wouldnt be surprised if you never wanted to talk to me again after today   
shit   
i hate myself so much   
i am the literal scum of the earth   
shitfuck   
kill me   
no please seriously   
do it so that i dont   
god   
nothing even happened today i dont know whats wrong with me im so fucked up   
ive given up on even doing that slightly flirty thing i do where i get super mega gay on you and wonder why the hell you dont notice   
i cant even do that anymore   
it makes me sick thinking that youd settle for me anyway   
i mean even in some ideal universe where you were gay and actually wanted to give my sorry ass a chance   
i dont think i could do it because im so horrible man im the worst kind of person i make myself so sick   
im a piece of shit human being and you deserve so so much better and the day that you find better   
well   
id like to think that id be happy for you but we all know im a selfish piece of shit and id probably just cry more because im a fucking wimp and i never do anything else   
actually recently i havent been crying as much   
ive just been   
sort of numb   
i told my therapist this and he said that this isnt a good thing   
so i was like whatever fuck you man   
and told rose   
and she said the same thing   
said she was worried about me   
that being numb was even worse than crying it out   
so i said whatever to her too   
actually in kind of an asshole way but whatever yknow   
cant get more dickish than i am anyway   
so today at school i was really numb and stupid and was kind of just staring blankly   
didnt realise youd tried to talk to me until like the millionth time when you were kind of pissed at me   
fair enough i must be annoying as hell jesus christ   
you finally got my attention and asked if i wanted to come over after school   
i said no because i really didnt   
and i need you to know right now   
that this isnt your fault   
its not your fault its mine   
ive been a dick lately   
everything feels either too big or too small for me like im either constricted or just floating in a big bout of nothingness all the time   
so i cant deal with being alone with you   
with the one person that i trust more than anyone in the world   
that one person who means so much to me that i know i wouldnt be able to help breaking down and telling you everything if you asked   
i wouldnt be able to stop myself from leaning in and kissing you and it would be gross because i would be crying and youd probably push me away disgusted but i wouldnt care   
because i cant help it   
seriously   
and thats why i couldnt come over today   
thats why i cant come over any day any more   
thats why instead of sitting with you at lunch i pretend to have homework to do   
and then left for home that one day you offered to help   
youre trying so hard and i wish youd just   
stop   
because its killing me   
its killing me that im so awful and you still care about me so much   
why do you even care   
im not worth it   
im not   
so today when i said no   
i expected you to get angry   
WANTED you to get angry   
shit i kind of need it at this point   
i wouldnt hold it against you if you called me out on being an asshole punched me in the face and never talked to me again   
id miss you so fucking much youre the only reason im still here i swear to god but i wouldnt hold it against you   
but you   
you with your   
your fucking perfect face   
this fucking perfect smile   
just look at me   
like you understand everything   
so perfectly   
and say   
thats okay dave maybe some other time   
you dont get to do that you asshole   
you dont get to just forgive me when i dont want to be forgiven   
i need you to hate me   
like i hate myself   
so much   
need you to hit me and spit on me and turn everyone else against me   
want to crawl into a dark hole and be left alone forever   
slowly rot there   
but at the same time i was so fucking happy   
so fucking   
*relieved*   
that you didnt hate me   
and it just made me feel worse   
because i was such a shit friend and you were so patient and caring and just so   
yourself   
just so john egbert   
because thats the kind of person you are   
so when i got home i ended up bursting into tears   
crying for the first time in weeks   
i cant feel my wrists or my arms anymore but my thighs are stinging like a bitch   
its always like that really   
kind of funny   
i hope i dont get any of blood on this letter but i dont think i will because most of the bleeding has stopped now i think   
except for this one little cut up the top of my wrist   
right above where my vein sits   
where ive always purposely left blank   
in case i was ever going to kill myself   
perfect little space to just dig right in and snap the fucker in half watch all the blood pour out   
country feedback is a really good song by the way   
you know   
This flower is scorched   
This film is on   
On a maddening loop   
These clothes   
These clothes don't fit us right   
I'm to blame   
shits deep   
and   
its playing   
it keeps playing   
i think im gonna play it when i kill myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i actually updated!!  
> at any cost, i'm sorry for not updating for a while, but i've had some stuff going on and yeah i've just been way too out of it to even be able to begin to attempt writing or- god forbid, since for some reason ao3 fucks up every time i try and i dont always have the patience- editing dave's text in line by fricking line, so yeah. have a super long chapter as an apology, and more chapters coming in the very near future!  
> so thanks so so so so much to everyone who's still reading this and leaving me nice comments  
> you guys are wow  
> way heaps super coolio, no kidding  
> and if anyone is interested, my tumblr is here (http://bee2knee2.tumblr.com/) so feel free to follow me or talk to me or make fun of how many selfies i post or whatthefuckever else your coolio little heart desires.


	4. Chapter 4

[T](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IHFVn0sv14&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn&index=96)he next day, you get out of bed. You eat breakfast with your dad and you put your uniform on. You brush your teeth and comb your hair and you walk to school.

It's the first time since you were five years old that you've made the ten minute walk to your school without Dave present. When you cross the road in between your two houses, the road where he normally catches up and walks with you, you don't even blink.

It's kind of strange, you think, but you really, really understand what he meant about being numb.

You see Rose and Jade at school, and you all hug and Jade cries and you think that Rose might know, but she doesn't say anything. Doesn't say that she knows how the letters are affecting you, but it must show in your eyes how there's only one left.

You walk into third period feeling kind of weird in your stomach, but it's only because it's just occurred to you that Bro's going to pull the plug on Dave soon-- may have even done it this morning-- and then you'll have to really accept that he's gone, see him cold and dead in a coffin and toss one of those stupid flowers he would have made fun of after him as he's lowered into the ground.

Bro said that the funeral's gonna be in about a week's time, and you're actually contemplating not going.

You go into class with Jade at your side, making light chatter about what you'd missed. She's trying to hard, to make things go back to normal; making jokes and smiling half-heartedly. You try in earnest to laugh and nod along when she talks, but it's exhausting, so after a while you just give up and go back to staring blankly while your teacher goes on about something you couldn't care less about. And you used to find biology so interesting.

In all honesty, you think you might have been able to get through the rest of the day, and then you could have gone home, finished Dave's last letter, and gone to sleep. Got on with your life.

But then, fifteen minutes into class, when everyone was distracted and immersed in discussion about how much they didn't care for whatever practical they'd just been given, and Gamzee decided to lean forward and talk to you.

"How you holdin up, my mirthful motherfucker?"

You turn to look at him over your shoulder, too lethargic to even raise an eyebrow. "What?"

"How you holdin up?" he repeats, lips stretching into a grin that normally would have made you shudder and back down. "Y'know, now that your boyfriend has all up and offered the blood of the veins in his wrists to the motherfuckin messiahs like a good little fag." He's grinning; and you don't even understand half of what he's saying, but now your blood is pounding in your ears, your cheeks are red, your mouth is dry. Because he won't stop grinning. And after a moment, he leans in even closer, unbrushed hair hanging in his face, and whispers, "Lucky, too. I  was motherfuckin waitin for the day when he finally clued into the fact that nobody liked him and did us all a grand motherfuckin miracle of a favour."

There's a sickening crack, and suddenly Gamzee is out of his seat, ass on the ground, blood seeping through the fingers he's got in a vice grip around his nose. It takes you a second to realise that you punched him, and you only realise because Jade screams.

You wish you cared more than you do, but you don't, and it scares you. Your teacher escorts you to the principal's office. You barely bat an eyelid. You can feel your dad shaking his head at you like he can't believe what you've become already, and you couldn't care less. You feel numb again. When your principal, Ms. Paint, with whom you've never once had a problem with before, asks you what came over you, you just shrug.

"I'm not going to suspend you, John," she tells you, "because I've never had a problem with you before, and I understand that there are... some certain circumstances that have led to this. I am, however, going to recommend you to our school's grief counsellor."

You don't look at her.

She shuffles the papers on her desk, offering you a consoling smile. "Well, I sincerely hope that this kind of thing doesn't happen again," she says, all stern gaze and concern over her glasses.

"I sincerely hope that that asshole doesn't consider saying shit about my dead best friend again," you retort in a smartass tone, looking up to meet her gaze suddenly. She almost flinches.

"Is that what this is about?" she asks gently. "Did he say something about David?"

You shrug.

She doesn't ask again.

When you're finally allowed to leave her office, it's lunch time, and already word has spread back to Rose about what happened- -most likely through the likes of Jade or Kanaya, who sits in the back of your biology class and passes notes to Rose in math.

"Why does it matter?" you snap, feeling your cheeks heat up despite yourself. "He didn't say anything I didn't already know."

Rose quirks an eyebrow. "You agree with him?"

You bristle, running a hand through your hair and exhaling sharply through your teeth. "No, I didn't mean- fuck, Rose, you know what I mean. I don't think that- it's not like 'nobody wanted Dave', like Gamzee was saying. He's just an asshole."

"I'm aware," Rose says, and looks over her shoulder at Jade briefly. "We all loved Dave."

"I don't know why everyone's walking on fucking eggshells around me," you snap despite yourself, and Rose jumps, raising her eyebrows at you. "They want me to see a goddamned grief counsellor now. Would have been handy to get Dave some therapy while he was still here, y'know? Maybe pay a little more attention to the guy who was cutting his own wrists as opposed to the guy who's just a little upset about it?"

"John, your reaction to Dave's death surpasses the term 'just a little upset'. Do you want to talk about this?"

"We're talking, aren't we?" you ask, tossing a bitter smile her way. Jade drops your gaze when you look at her. "Besides, there's nothing to talk about. Dave's dead, I'm a psychopath. Done and done."

"Jade," Rose says, turning to look at her apologetically. "I think I'm going to go outside for a cigarette."

Jade realises what she means after a moment, and nods slowly, throwing glances between Rose and John. "Yeah, I think I'll go... um, see what Feferi's up to. I'll see you guys later."

You don't feel bad until she's gone, and when you do, it hits you like a tonne of bricks. You're a really, really shitty friend. Rose has to drag you by the collar to get you to follow her outside.

When you're finally out there, behind one of the decrepit brick walls adjacent to the old gym that no one uses anymore, you lean back against the wall, raking your hands through your hair and squeezing your eyes shut. Everything hurts.

"You're angry," Rose says against the snap of her lighter. It's not a question.

"I'm hurt," you say back anyway, and it's only then that your voice breaks, only then that you feel everything that's been holding you up wobble and threaten to give way. Rose looks at you, startled, and for a second you think you're going to cry, but you don't. You just gasp in a ragged, slightly wet breath, and slide down to the ground, resting your chin on your knees and blinking back the stinging wetness of tears that won't form properly. Rose sits down with you after a moment and puts her arm around you.

"You're hurt that he didn't tell you," she says, voice too soft, the shapes of her words too hollow and distant. "You're hurt that he was hurting and no one could help him. You're hurt that you didn't help him."

"I would have-"

"It doesn't matter what you would have done," she says softly, "because you didn't do it, and he's gone now, so it doesn't matter. You're angry, John."

"No, I'm-"

"You're not angry at your dad, or at Gamzee, or at Jade or myself. It's okay to say it."

"I'm not mad at-"

"You're mad at Dave."

"No," you say, refusing to look at her. "No, Dave didn't do anything wrong, he didn't-"

"He left you here," she says, voice too harsh for the gentle tone she's using. "He went and killed himself without even a proper goodbye. He never even bothered to ask you how you felt about him."

"Rose, shut up." You shove her off of you. You both freeze, just sitting there a moment, waiting for your breathing to calm down. After a moment, you look at her, and she's smiling.

"Good," she says. "Hit something."

You take one of the stones along the bottom of the wall and throw it. It lands somewhere to the east of where you're sitting, hits the ground with a thud. Rose hands you another one. You throw it even harder than the last, this time aiming for the car in the abandoned teacher's parking lot that you can just make out ahead of you. It cracks the windshield, but the car is too far gone for the alarm to go off.

Then you're throwing them without really seeing anything, blind fury throw after throw after throw until there aren't any stones left and Rose has put out her cigarette.

Her hand is on your shoulder, and you're breathing hard, too hard, spots dancing in your vision.

"It's okay," she says, but it's not.  
You tell her this.

"It will be," she says instead, but you beg to differ.

"I only have one letter left," you say, voice breaking on letter, "I only. He's gonna be gone after that, Rose, really gone. I can't do it without him, I can't. It's like-- he's not the only one with problems, you know? Fuck! I was hurting too. I am hurting too. I'm not mad, I just- how could he do that to me? Say all of those things, write all of those letters, and then just leave me here? It's not fair."

"Life," she says, resting her cheek on your shoulder, staring at the battered mess of the teacher's car, "isn't fair."

The fifth period bell goes, and it's like the end to some song that Dave will never hear again.

..

After Rose leaves to go to class, you make your way across the back of the school to jump the back gate, and start making your way to the Striders' apartment. It occurs to you only when you're at their doorstep that he might not be home, but all of your worry dissipates when the door opens and you're met with those ridiculous shades. He looks surprised to see you.

"Have you done it yet?" you ask. "Is he gone?"

Bro hesitates a moment, and then, very gently, shakes his head. You step into his apartment.

"Take me there, please."

..

You never thought you'd actually have to stare at your best friend, cold and small and pale in a hospital bed, and yet here you are, doing exactly that.

Bro leaves you alone after it becomes apparent that you're just going to stand there and stare as long as he's alone, and you're thankful, because you don't think you could bear doing this in front of him, or with the door open.

You rub at the back of your neck awkwardly, embarrassed despite the fact that he definitely can't see you.

"Hi," you say, feeling dumb. The corpse doesn't reply.

Ever-present is the monotonous beep of the heart-monitor, signalling that his heart is beating slower than normal and he is, in fact, one missed beat away from being put in the ground somewhere.  He should still feel alive to you, like this, you think; the machines he's hooked up to should be enough to give you that sickly little sliver of hope that he's going to be okay, but it's not, because in this moment, when you are staring at the bandages around his wrists, the sallow colour of his cheeks and the bags under his eyes, Dave Strider is dead.

You sit down in the chair next to his bed, looking at your hands in your lap, worrying your bottom lip.

"So," you say, and finally, dare a glance at him. "Fuck you."

It's the only thing that feels appropriate, and if he were here, he'd probably pat you on the back for it.

"Fuck you," you say again, and it feels good. "You unimaginable, selfish, psychotic bastard. You asshole of the highest order. You-" you dare a giggle, breathy and nervous and a little hysterical, at the thought of one of the nurses or doctors coming in here to find you cussing out a dead body. "Dick."

You take a deep breath, absentmindedly timing it with Dave's heart monitor. Then, you look at him again. "Dave, I really, really, really hope that you're a ghost or that heaven is real or something and you can hear me, because I'm really mad, and I need to say some things."

You half-expect a ghost Dave to materialize in front of you, but it doesn't, so you go on.

"You are an idiot. A complete moron, and actually, I'm almost embarrassed to call you a best friend. Did you seriously have no idea how I felt about you? I mean, jesus, it's not like I hid it very well. Even I had suspicions about you, but-- you couldn't. You're meant to know me, you bastard, and evidently you didn't know a single thing about me! The letters, Dave," you take a deep breath, steadying yourself again. Easy, you tell yourself, but it's Rose's voice in your head. Your hands are shaking. "I read the letters. You should have told me. If you had have... we could have..." you trail off, staring blankly for a while before you even realise you'd stopped. "But we can't, now, because you're dead. You idiot. I'm never gonna get to kiss you, and to hold you, and to do all that stuff, all those... those things you wrote about, because you had to go and end your life without even the courtesy to let me know what was going on! I should hate you, Dave Strider."

You're choking up. You can feel the words, swelling and hot in your throat, refusing to come out and pushing anyway. You take another shaky breath and try to calm yourself down.

Your voice is quiet when you speak again. "But I don't. I don't hate you. Not at all, you selfish prick, because I love you. And you're dead. I'm sitting here talking to a dead Dave. Awesome." Only now do you feel the tears, finally springing into your eyes, hot and wet; you think, for a moment, that this is it, here is where you cry, here is where Bro comes back into the room and you hug and you pull the plug together and move on with your lives like 'Dave would have wanted'. That's the ideal situation, anyway, and exactly how one of your movies would have ended.

But unfortunately, life, as Rose has pointed out so many times, is really, truly not ideal.

You stand up on two shaky legs and attempt to look as less stumble-y as possible when you leave the room, searching around for Bro. He spots you right away and makes his way over, so you thank him quickly and dart for the exit.

"Kid!" he calls, when you practically take off into a run. "John, hold up!"

You don't wait for him.

You're mad again. You hope that walking will calm you down, but it doesn't, so you first take off into a jog, and then into a sprint, for your house. Spots dance in your vision and you feel the kind of dizzy like before you usually throw up, but you keep running. Because how dare he. How dare Dave think he had any right to do that, to just silence the world with a razor and leave you behind like this. How dare he just lie there while you spill your heart out and tell him you love him.

Your dad, thankfully, is still at work when you get home, so you fish the spare key from under the mat and storm your way inside, kicking your shoes off and stumbling for your room, half in a daze. The letter. That's all you're thinking about now, because your heart is pounding and your blood is on fire and you're trying so, so hard not to just curl up into a ball somewhere and forget about everything.

It's waiting next to your bed where you left it, so, fuming, you pick it up, tear it open, and sit down on your bed.

 

john   
its not your fault   
i know that from the looks of previous letters and how ive been acting lately and the shit ive been saying it would sound like its your fault   
but its not   
none of it is   
i dont know if youll ever get to read these   
maybe a few years from now when youre in college and you have a nice girlfriend and have forgotten about me   
bro will find them and give them to you or something   
and yeah   
sorry in advance for when that day comes   
when you have to read the countless letters about me hating myself and loving you and being sick and fuck else   
sorry   
but anyway   
none of this is your fault   
so if you ever read this i want you to understand that thats all   
im sick   
maybe ive always been sick   
but thats not important   
whats important is that im sick now and thats the only reason this is happening   
it has nothing to do with you   
you always made it better without fail i swear to you john   
you were one of the only good things in my life   
and it sucks a lot that im never gonna get to say that to your face never gonna get to kiss you or stay in bed all day with you or pick out   
fucking   
curtains with you   
but i have to do this   
im shit   
no one wants me here anymore and literally all i achieve in this world is fucking up other peoples lives so this is a favour to them just as much as it is a selfish as fuck thing to do   
if and when you read this   
tell bro hes not an asshole   
tell him that he didnt fuck up as a guardian and i never wanted a dad anyway he was better than any dad i could have had   
shit   
um   
tell rose and jade that they were sisters to me look after them make sure they stay out of trouble   
im gonna miss them a lot   
and   
i love you   
thats about all i have to say to you i guess   
i love you and you made my life better   
dont think that it wasnt enough because this has nothing to do with you and i know what youre like you get all self blamey when shit like this happens   
dont do that   
i cant see a future for myself and every single day of my life just gets harder and harder to the point where i cant get out of bed without feeling like im already dead   
im more trouble than im worth   
and im sorry   
im sorry if i affected your life in any way   
i hope its not too hard to forget about me   
for everyone else too   
love you   
im sorry if theres blood on this letter too   
im not being as careful this time   
im getting dizzy though and the bleeding wont stop so i guess ive done an alright job havent fucked this one up yet   
god knows what id do if it turned out i was such a screw up that i couldnt even kill myself properly   
you just messaged me   
asshole   
stop being so nice   
why are you even nice to me is it because you feel sorry for me   
i told you i was tired i think youre finally leaving me alone   
ok   
ok ive said goodbye now   
i can do this at least knowing ive said goodbye properly look im not such a shitty friend after all   
heh

You turn the letter over. There's no more. Frantically, you pull the box out from under your bed. There has to be another letter- he can't just leave it at that.

You throw the letter, frustrated when the paper refuses to look as violent as you are when it floats away and lands on the floor gently. You grit your teeth and throw your bag, instead, but it just results in Dave's sweater falling out and landing in front of you.

You grip it, hard, and suddenly you can't see past the tears forming in your eyes. Unable to hold it in anymore, you give up and heave out a breathless sob, and suddenly the tears are coming and you don't stop.

You curl up on the floor with the sweater in your hands and breathe it in through choked wet breaths and uneven sobs that wrack your body so hard it hurts. You're not mad anymore.

After a long, long time, you run out of tears and just lay there sort of convulsing, dry sobs pressed into the fabric that barely smells like him anymore now that it's drenched with your tears. It occurs to you that you actually can't stop crying now that you've started, and every time you try you're just met with the images of Dave in the hospital bed again and how Bro's almost definitely pulled the plug by now, and you're sobbing all over again, noises silly and girlish and terrible. Then, you sit up. You take a deep breath. You try to keep your gaze straight, but your eyes keep darting around the room, following the motions of dizziness. Thoughts pass your mind, and you shiver in turn with each and every one of them. You stand up. Your hands shake.

Suddenly you know exactly how to stop all of this, how to make it go away. You can't go back to school tomorrow, see Rose, see Jade, see everyone who saw you lose it with Gamzee earlier today. You can't face your dad again, see the disappointment in his eyes. You can't face Bro, who watched you sprint from the hospital like you couldn't get away faster, who might ask you to attend his dead brother's funeral. You can't. You can't. It's raining outside.

Legs wobbling, you walk with a punch-drunk stumble to your door, fumble with the lock. It hurts your fingers, cold and numb like you're as dead as Dave already, and you hiss at the pain, surprised, when they catch on the metal. It's a kind of pain that makes you feel like you've done something right, like you have an anchor. Blindly, you search for more of it.

Your nails aren't long enough to do much damage when they sink into your arms, drag down to your wrists, but the skin there stings and raises and it's enough to make you want to drop down to your knees again, gasp in surprise, shiver.  Your eyes are darting again, as it's suddenly occurring to you how close your dad is to coming home. You go to dig through your desk drawer almost blindly, throwing pencils, fingers catching on the edge of rulers, until you find the pencil sharpener you were looking for, plastic and sturdy. Too sturdy to break with your fingers, lest the plastic scratches you up (as if you care at this point) and you don't know where you'd find a screwdriver without asking your dad. You collapse on the floor again, head in your hands, and let out another sob, fresh tears finding their way out of your eyes. You feel stupid and childish, sitting here in your room crying like a kid, throwing a tantrum and taking it out on your desk. What did you think you were going to do, suddenly have the threshold for pain to endure metal slicing into your skin, just like Dave? You just cry harder, not knowing what to do. Everything hurts, you can't think straight, you're tired-

Tired.

There are sleeping pills next to your bed.

Legs trembling so hard you feel like you're in danger of falling over, you make your way over to your bed, reaching for the little bottle. Your hands are shaking so badly that the pills rattle around inside. You turn it over in your hand, eyes scanning the back for where it says not to take more than the recommended dose, but you can't focus enough to find the words. You know they're there, anyway. You've read them enough times while you're waiting for the pills to kick in and send you to sleep at night, though of course no more than two; you've always been wary about the dangers of overdosing.

You almost laugh out loud at the thought, now, as your unscrew the cap and pour the little white capsules into your hand; there are too many to fit, so they spill over and land on your bed. Still shaking (more fall) you put what you can in your mouth, trying and failing to swallow them all; so you take the stale bottle of water, also next to your bed, and try to swallow them as patiently as possible, even though you can feel them all sliding down your throat and you almost gag a few times. You don't bother counting how many you put in your mouth. It won't matter soon, anyway.

When you've swallowed them all, you start crying again, almost running to the bathroom to throw them up a couple of times. Before the fifth time, when you're actually starting to get up from your bed to commit to the walk of failed-suicide-attempt shame, you feel a sort of sleepiness start to set in. Giddy, you laugh about it, because you don't know what else to do: this is it, you're dying. It's not as dramatic as you'd thought it would be.

You don't know when exactly you closed your eyes, but suddenly you're curled up on your side, clutching Dave's sweater, and everything's warm.

He should have done this, you think, nuzzling into the warmth, trying to find the source of it. This is much nicer. Just like going to sleep.

You think you hear your pesterchum app go off on your phone, and at some point, your dad coming home. Belatedly, you realise you probably should have hidden the bottle of pills, but it's too late, and you're too sleepy to care.

The last thing that you think before drifting off is that suicide really isn't all it's cut out to be.

 

TT: John   
TT: John, seriously, I need you   
TT: You have to come back to the hospital   
TT: Dave's awake


	5. Chapter 5

[W](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly0fz0T_lQE&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn&index=56)hen you wake up, it's dark outside.

There is something considerably terrifying about waking up from a nap, is your first thought. Like being underwater or something. That's why you don't usually take them. And hold on, why did you take a nap?

You sit up in bed, holding your head; you feel kind of dizzy, groggy, like how you feel the morning after falling asleep on medication. Your curtains are shut and your bedroom door is open, where particles of light are swimming in the light coming from the hallway. You stand up; your legs wobble. So you sit down again, scratch at the back of your neck, and try to remember when you last went to sleep.

The last thing you remember... Dave was over. You almost start at the thought, because of course: you'd gone upstairs to get something, though God knows you can't remember anymore, and had ended up passing out on your bed. It was your first time trying alcohol tonight, which is probably why you feel so dizzy. You come out of the post-sleep daze as gently as you can manage, reciting the obvious facts while you roll the kinks out of your shoulders. Your dad is out of town on business for the weekend. Right. You turn 15 in three days. Awesome. Dave is downstairs with the bottle of Johnnie Walker he jacked from his older brother. Less awesome. It was almost empty when you left it to stumble upstairs, giggling almost hysterically to yourself, to get that thing... whatever it was. You shrug it off, stretching your arms and yawning, thanking God that at least it was still night time and your dad wasn't about to burst through the door to find you and your best friend passed out to the tune of your first run at alcoholism. You try getting up again, finding walking a bit easier this time; you must still be drunk, because that burning, slightly-uncomfortable feeling in your throat hasn't gone away yet, and when you bump into the wall next to your door, you laugh out loud.

You manage to find your way downstairs and to the living room again, though, so your motor skills are still intact. Now, to find Dave...

You hear the refrigerator close to your left, in the direction of the kitchen, and grin, making your way there. You find Dave shirtless, leaning against your kitchen counter eating a sandwich, and he looks up when you enter, offering a grin at you despite the fact that his mouth is stuffed with bread. Dork.

"Hey man," he says after he's swallowed. "You were up there for a while. Did you fall asleep or something?"

"Yeah, actually," you admit, rubbing the back of your neck and laughing quietly, "I think I might have. God, I feel all weird."

"Yeah, my main man Johnnie'll do that to you."

"Will you please stop referring to the alcohol as if it were a person," you mumble, blinking sleep still out of your eyes as you step around him to raid your own fridge for something to eat.

"Hey, alcohol is like people," he sniffs, defensive. "My three best friends are alcohol. Johhnie, Jack and-"

"Jim, I know, you made the joke when you came in."

He shuts up with a grin, shuts the fridge door before you have a chance to find anything to eat. He blocks your path, still grinning.

"What?" you ask, nervous.

He laughs quietly, poking your shoulder playfully. "Dude, guess what."

"What?" you ask again, poking him back; he's close, his skin is radiating warmth, everything smells kind of vaguely like whiskey right now. You can't stop giggling, but everything has this wracking sense of deja-vu tied to it.

"We're totally not here right now."

"Dude," you say, attempting to shove him out of the way. "We're drunk, not high."

"No, seriously," he says. "We're not here right now. I'm not real. This isn't happening."

You shove him again, grinning. "Don't be stupid, of course we're here, otherwise we wouldn't be-" You stop. Your brows pull together, and absently, you place a hand against the side of the fridge, bracing yourself while your skin buzzes and your head swims and your whole world shudders for a moment. No, you're not here. Where are you?

As if a switch has been flipped, suddenly you're remembering things, and you can't stop remembering them: your dad coming home four hours early while Dave was still upstairs with the bottle of booze, Dave climbing out your window just in the nick of time, unnoticed. Rose's 16th, loud music and streamers, having your face pushed into the cake and your three friends eating it off of your face, vacationing in Monte Carlo with Jade for a week over the summer, skyping with Dave and Rose the first night because you missed them already, getting 100% on a math test and going out for ice cream with your dad, crying a lot because you realised you were in love with your best friend, telling him in the dark of a cave about that time you'd wanted to die, talking to Rose because you knew something was up with him, smiling at him over your calculus book even though it hurt because he wouldn't smile back, waking up that one morning to find out he was dead, the letters. You shoot back into reality, for all lack of a better term, with a start, choking on a breath and gripping the counter so hard that your knuckles turn white.

"Oh, God," you say.

"Yeah," Dave says, taking another bite of his sandwich. "Shit, right?"

"Dave-" you try, and choke up again, gasping on a breath. You need to sit down. Holy shit. Holy shit.

"You fucked up, I agree," he says, walking over to pull out a chair from the table. He sits down, talks around a mouthful of sandwich. "You done goofed, son."

"Am I dead?" It's the first actual question you manage to get out; he shrugs.

"I dunno," he says. "Are you?"

"Dave," you complain, sitting down at the table in front of him and putting your head in your hands. "Please. I need to know."

He ignores you, humming some crappy tune while he eats. When it becomes apparent that he's not going to be much help, you talk to yourself.

"I took sleeping pills," you tell him.

"Shit-load of 'em," he agrees around a mouthful.

"And then I fell asleep..."

"That's generally the idea of sleeping pills, Johnnie boy."

"And then I woke up here..."

"Drunk, might I add."

"And you're dead, so..." you fold your hands in front of you, taking a deep breath. "I must be dead, too. Huh. So this is the afterlife, huh? What is it, re-living old memories or something? Because I can't really tell if that's meant to be Heaven or Hell, to be honest." Judging by the manner of yours and Dave's deaths, you'd be quicker to guess Hell.

"Almost," Dave says. "But no, not quite. Like I said. I'm not real."

"But, you're here," you say, confused. "You're Dave."

"I'm your idea of Dave," he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. When you just stare, he sighs, sharp, and goes on. "Basically, I'm what your mind has collected from memories and perspective. So I'm only Dave as you see him... er, me. Not the real Dave. None of this is real."

"So, like, a dream?" you ask, shifting uncomfortably; for some reason, the thought of dreaming makes you uncomfortable, but maybe that's only because suddenly you're thinking back to what Rose said that one time, how every dreamer wakes up eventually.

"Sort of," dream-Dave allows, putting the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. "Sort of like a dream, sort of like a memory. Folks 'round these parts like to call 'em 'dream bubbles'. I wouldn't pay too much mind to what they have to say, though, dead people are crazy."

"So I am dead," you say, tone deflated. Dave shrugs.

"Kinda. Yeah. Sorry. Hey, don't make that face, it's not all bad."

"How can it not be 'all bad'?" you scoff, scowling at the table. "I did a stupid, reckless thing because I was a little bit upset, and now my whole life is over. Literally."

The corner of Dave's mouth turns up. "Yeah, funny that, but it's kinda how death works. But I've always believed that there's a light at the end of every tunnel, y'know-"

"No you haven't-"

"-and that means that I believe shit's gonna get better for you. Real soon. In fact," he glances up, and it takes you a moment to realise he's looking at the clock hanging above your oven. "I believe you have an appointment right about now."

You blink at him. "Appointment?"

"Date with death," he says, grinning. "Chat with the reaper. Bargaining hour. Whatever you wanna call it. Doesn't matter, 'cause fact is, I think we're about to be parting ways."

"Wait!" you say, shooting up from your chair as the panic sets in and turns your blood to ice. "Wait, no, not yet, I still have more stuff I wanna ask y-"

"John Egbert."

You blink. Suddenly, where Dave was is a wall, forming its way into your vision as if you closed your eyes a moment and woke up somewhere else. Slowly, hesitantly, you turn yourself in the direction of the voice.

You're in an office. It should be funny to you, dying and ending up in the portion of whatever afterlife this is that looks like a principal's office, but you don't really feel like laughing. The man behind the desk doesn't look like he'd appreciate you laughing, either, so instead you offer him your best blank I-really-have-no-idea-what's-going-on-here stare.

He nods to the chair in front of you.

"Sit."

You do. Facing you, to your left, is a photograph on his desk of a default family; blonde wife, dark haired husband, two kids in front of a picket white fence. In fact, the whole office feels a little staged, complete with the stereotypical dollar-store knick knacks and drawings done by incompetent high school students.

"Where are we?" you ask.

"Is this not alright?" he asks, quirking an eyebrow. "This is what your subconscious feels is most appropriate for our situation. But I can adapt it, if that would make you more comfortable."

The atmosphere shifts around you, and again, you get the sense like you've closed your eyes and woken up somewhere else. You're sitting in an armchair, now, covered in a tacky rose design, and instead of the man that was in front of you just now you're presented with a woman with curly red hair. "Is this better?" she asks, offering you a smile that seems just a little fake.

You look around. "This is Jade's vacation home," you say.

She nods as if she understands, but you've never seen this woman before in your life.

You look at her. "Am I dead?"

"Yes, John," she says, nodding; like she's a doctor, breaking the news to you gently. "I'm afraid you're dead."

You take a deep breath, leaning back in the chair; it smells like play-dough and Jade's grandfather's cologne. "Is this Hell?"

She laughs; it's a musical sort of laugh, a kind of trill, and when she stops, her smile is genuine. "Oh, no, I'm afraid not. This isn't Hell, John."

You sigh with the deepest kind of relief. "Okay," you say, and sigh again for good measure, running a hand through your hair and swallowing. (You're dead you're dead you're actually dead how did this even happen) "So where is it? Purgatory?"

"Nope," her lips make a sort of smacking sound on the 'p'. She smiles gently at you. "John, this isn't the afterlife at all, not yet. You're not quite at that stage yet, it would seem."

"Not at that stage?" you repeat, voice raising. "I'm dead, aren't I? You just said I was."

"Yes, you're dead. But you have to understand that the circumstances are a little tricky, especially for suicide patients such as yourself. It wasn't your time, John."

"Wasn't my time?" you're beginning to feel a bit like her echo. "When is my time, then?"

She leans back in her seat. "The details of that aren't important. What is important is that you weren't quite finished with this life yet. See, the details of life and death and existential fulfilment are rather complicated, so let's just cut it short: it's not your time. You haven't finished the course that was set out for you in this life, because you took control and ended it yourself. The ramifications of those actions are, well... look around you, John. This isn't any afterlife you've ever heard of, I'll bet."

You don't know what to say, so you just shake your head no; she takes that as her cue to go on.

"Right, because you're not in any afterlife. It's kind of hard to explain. But to make my job a little easier, and your time here a little fairer, I'm going to do what I do with all suicide patients, and I'm going to give you a choice."

A choice? You narrow your eyes.

"Basically, you have two options," she says, ticking them off on her fingers. "One, we can send you back to your body, and you won't remember that any of this ever happened. If you're special, you'll recall this as a very faint kind of 'near death experience', but that's all. It will seem like any other failed suicide attempt, and your life will go on. Your other choice," she looks right at John for this, eyes too full suddenly, "is to stay dead, and continue on walking the earth until you finish this life's agenda."

You frown at her. "Like, a ghost?"

"Yes, John. Like a ghost."

You stare. After a while of staring in complete silence, you drop your gaze from her and simply stare at your hands, thinking. Well, since you have the option of being alive again, you may as well...

Your mind returns to Dave, pale and still in his hospital bed. You can't go back and face that again. All that guilt...

And your dad. What will he say, knowing you tried to kill yourself? He'd never look at you the same again. Neither would Rose, or Jade. You'd have to go back to school and face everyone. You'd live a long and monotonous life, full of loneliness and accusations, guilt because of your best friend's death.

You take a deep breath. "I think I'd like to stay dead," you tell her.

"John," she says, gently. "There's absolutely no reason you have to jump into a decision right now. Maybe there are some things you'd like to know first-"

"No, I don't- I want to stay dead. Thank you. But, um. I've made up my mind."

She looks at you sternly, stone-faced and all calm, and finally, nods her head. "Alright. As you wish."

You blink, and again, she's gone.

You take a step back, finding yourself standing, and attempt to shake the shiver that's threatening to crawl up your spine. If this is what being dead is going to be like from now on, you figure it's going to take some getting used to, because you're dizzy already. You take a deep breath. Now. Where are you?

You look around at the expanse of colours, dull and confused. When you blink, they shift. You brace yourself, taking a few steps back and trying to readjust your gaze. Everything kind of looks like you've zoomed too far up on your camera. If you could just...

You do something. You don't know what, but you kind of just attempt to... zoom out, you guess? The world shifts into focus around you, and suddenly, you realise where you are.

You're in Dave's room. You think back to what the woman-- man? dead person, possibly-- had said about your subconscious taking control, and wonder if maybe you had subconsciously decided to go here, or something. Either way, it looks like this is where you've ended up. Now. Deep breath. Again. What day is it?

You dare a glance to the window, discovering that it's maybe late afternoon, early evening. The streets below Dave's bedroom window have always been less than appealing, you guess, so it's no surprise when you're met with the late-in-the-day glare of the grimy Texan streets below; if anything, the familiar sight is weirdly comforting. You look around the rest of his room, frowning when you find that it's back to normal. You almost curse out loud with the realisation that this might not be real, either. Is that what death is, then? A series of... what had dream-Dave called them? Dream bubbles? You really, really hope not, because the thought of 'finishing this life' to the beat of your own memories is borderline horrifying. Still, it's not looking too good, because Dave's room is completely back to order. He's got fresh bed sheets-- no sign of blood or police tape-- there are no boxes, his stuff all back in place.

You walk over to his wardrobe, where you know he keeps a calendar on the inside of his door. No luck. Your hand goes right through the handle when you try to open it, and the feeling is weird, sickly, rolls through your whole body. It's... weird. You kind of feel nauseous, violated. You make a mental note not to try touching anything again too soon.

Running a hand through your hair (you can still touch yourself, apparently, and you can still see your hand in front of you, so that's a good sign) you make your way downstairs, to the Striders' kitchen. Luckily for you, there's a My Little Pony calendar hanging up next to the fridge. You spend about a minute just staring at the last day crossed off. Is that really the date? If so, it's been about a week since you killed yourself.

You turn away from the calendar, placing your hands on your hips and surveying your surroundings. This is kind of cool, actually. Sort of like you're in a video game. You laugh out loud at that, kind of nervously, but then stop when a thought occurs to you: video games, generally, have villains, or in the least objectives. What's your objective?

As if on cue, the sound of the door being unlocked startles you, and your first instinct is to hide. You decide against that, though, because whoever it is at the door will probably want to talk to you, so you stay right where you are and wait patiently for the murmured voices to become more than just the distant shapes they're making.

What you don't expect is to recognise the two voices right away.

"-not just goin' straight up to your room, if that's what you think."

"Fuck off."

"We need to talk about this."

Footsteps enter the apartment, and the door shuts behind them, locks. You're frozen to the spot.

"We don't need to talk about shit, Bro. I told you everything before. I'm even seeing the stupid psychiatrist the hospital recommended. Now leave me alone."

There's a thump, and you hear the ragged intake of a breath; you can practically envisage the way that Bro would have blocked his path by slamming a hand into the wall.

"Kid," he says; his accent is somehow different now, less practised and more natural. "Please. Talk to me about this. You can't just hide and hope it'll all go away."

Scoff. "The fuck I can't. It's called the internet. Does wonders for distracting the adolescent mind, y'know."

"Don't be a smartass."

There's a pause, and you hear shuffling. You take the opportunity to hesitantly walk forward, in the direction of the front of the apartment, where they're talking.

 Finally, in a broken voice, you hear, "Forgive me for being a little on edge after having woken up in a hospital bed to discover that my best friend had killed himself because of me."

You freeze. Blood set absolutely to ice, you stand at the end of the kitchen, eyes wide, listening to their voices and gripping the sleeves of your jacket so hard it hurts.

"Dave, I know you're upset-"

"You're damn right I'm upset! Why couldn't you have- you just let him take the letters, didn't you? He would have been fine without them, you jackass! He would have gone on with his life, forgotten me... Like you all sh-"

"Don't," you hear Bro take in a breath, but you can't bring yourself to step forward, to reveal yourself to them. Everything's gone cold. "Don't you dare say shit like that. You have no idea what we all went through. What, did you think you could just walk right out the exit and hope no one would care? Do you have any idea what you did to John? He was a wreck, Dave. He showed up on my doorstep only a couple days in, drunk out of his mind. Spent the night God knows where. Do you have any idea how hard Jade and Rose cried? Fuck, no one's even heard from half of your friends for the past week, because none of them were showing up for school. We all love you, you idiot, and I don't ever want you to do something so stupid again." Dave's silent. "Understood?" He mutters a yes.

Bro grumbles under his breath, and then you hear retreating footsteps as he walks away. It's not until you hear the little shuddered breath of Dave trying not to cry that you muster the courage to step forward.

You don't think you've ever seen your best friend quite so broken in your life. He's leaning against the hallway wall for support, and it looks like his knees would give way if he tried to stand properly. His shades aren't on his face, so there's nothing blocking the sight of his eyes, red both in colour and with his efforts not to cry, even as the tears form in his eyes and spill over. He's lost weight-- how had you never noticed, he'd been losing so much _weight_ \-- and now, the sight of him small and pale and shaking, wiping at his nose with hands that come from bandaged wrists, you can't fathom your own sense of self-hatred.

This is happening. This isn't some sick, Hellish dream bubble, this is happening, and your best friend is alive and you are not and everything has gone to shit.

You take another step forward, but your legs feel like lead.

Finally, you manage a breath. "Dave."

He doesn't look up. Your brows pull together, and swallowing, you try again, louder and firmer. " _Dave_."

He looks up this time, but the flood of relief quickly turns into a sinking feeling when you realise that he's not looking at you. Rather, he's looking in your direction, at the kitchen, before he gives up and looks back down again, shoulders sagging as he gives up and lets out a sob. It feels like your insides are being ripped out of you all of a sudden, and all in a rush, you hurry towards him, desperately trying to lay touches on him, shake him, get his attention. Nausea overwhelms you and you watch through hysteria as your fingers slip through him over and over, and he continues to cry, unaware and unaffected by your presence. He won't respond to his name. Finally you give up, sinking to your knees beside him and giving up with a frustrated cry that might have been his name.

He moves after a moment, stepping right through you-- it makes you feel weird, again-- and making his way down the hall, to his bedroom. You belatedly wipe at your nose and get up to follow him, almost tripping on nothing a couple of times. He goes to shut the door behind him, right before Bro calls, seemingly from nowhere, "You'd better not be shutting that door." He pauses, and then throws it back open with a scowl, stomping over to his bed and flopping down on it.

You feel kind of weird watching this; watching Dave lost himself, watching him crawl under the covers still in his clothes, shoes included, and cry for a bit. You think it would be polite to be giving him privacy right now, but you can't really find it in your legs to move. So after a while, you go and sit on the bed with him, sitting kind of precariously on the edge. You start, after a moment, with the realisation that yes, you really are sitting, the solid feeling of the bed underneath you is real- you reach out, try to bunch up the covers in your hand, but your fingers just slip through again and a new wave of nausea hits you. You glower. So there are apparently some things you can do, and some things you just haven't mastered yet.

You think back to your conversations with a 13 year old Jade, when she stayed with you for the weekend because her house was haunted and her grandfather was taking care of it- you remember her not being scared, actually being kind of ticked off that he wasn't letting her help. She'd said that it wasn't like it was a big deal, ghosts. She probably would have been happy to let it go about its way just creating strange noises at night and hanging around, if it hadn't then started moving objects around and breaking glasses.

You puff out a breath at the memory, new guilt wracking you at the thought of Jade, but you decide to file that away for later; so ghosts can, apparently, move things. What, then? You just have to master it? Get better over time? You scowl again, resisting the urge to flop backwards unceremoniously onto Dave's bed before you realise that he can't see you and do it haphazardly, glaring up at his roof while he continues to cry into a pillow.

This might take a while.


	6. Chapter 6

[C](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htrfut8AGVc&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn&index=80)ontrary to what some of your favourite movies have led you to believe, being dead kind of sucks.

For starters, it is really, really, really gross to have people walk through you. You discover this multiple times, when you've just been standing around and either Dave or Bro has walked through you, completely unaware that they're taking 'invading your personal space' to a whole new level.

You also discover rather quickly that you don't need to sleep anymore, but there's nothing to do when Dave is asleep, so you spend the hours either walking the apartment aimlessly or resting your eyes on the couch or at the foot of Dave's bed, which is kind of hilarious, because it makes you feel like some kind of morbid ghost pet. You also don't need to eat, obviously, but that doesn't stop you from trying to pick up food when it's left out; you don't know what's sadder, the fact that you actually lack a desire to eat anymore or the fact that your hand goes right through the food in the first place.

  
Aside from being constantly bored (and lonely as hell), you'd have to admit that the worst part of all of this is that you have to just watch.

  
You have to watch Bro come into Dave's room to check on him every two hours at night, you have to watch Dave stop crying long enough to pretend he's asleep when he does, you have to watch Bro choke up on the phone begging for a few days off from work to look after Dave in the apartment. Then you have to watch the way he hurries when he has to leave for food, anyway, and the way it kills Dave-- and despite what he tells Bro, you know it's not just because he's under lock and key, because you know him well enough to know that the worst part of this whole thing is that he's hurting other people.

  
On the second night, you have to watch him break out the photos on his iPhone, and you think that there must really be something wrong with him because Dave's never been the sentimental type. (At least not when people are watching, you concede, and what a weird concept that is, to think that he has no idea you're watching him.) He stops on this one picture, this ridiculous selfie the two of you took one time in the back of a Wendy's, and again, when he cries over that, you're forced to remember that he liked you back. And you went and did something stupid, and now, well. Here you are.

  
On the third day, Dave has to start seeing this psychiatrist. You find that upon trying, you are very unable to leave the apartment, which is both incredibly frustrating and a huge set back; now not only are you only limited to being able to watch, but you're limited to being able to watch only what goes on in this apartment. Perfect.  
So this goes on for two and a half weeks, just you walking around by yourself, attempting in vain to pass time while Dave goes to his psychiatry appointments and, gradually, school again, but that only lasts for half the day the first time before he shows up home early with Bro. They don't talk for the rest of the night, so you have no idea what happened.

  
You figure that since you have nothing better to do, you may as well see what you can do about the whole 'no one being able to see you' situation. You keep thinking back to Jade, when she had told you about the situation in her house; about how it had gotten worse? Did that mean that the spirit, or whatever, had been able to communicate as time went on? How long would that even take?

  
You start practising, generally when Dave or Bro is in the room, to move objects on your own. It's harder than you'd originally thought, because every time your hand passes through an object you're met with a fresh wave of nausea; you're sure you'd throw up if you had anything in your stomach. After what you later conclude has been thirteen days, you're finally able to 'sort of kind of' create light breezes. It's nothing dramatic-- hardly anything that would get Dave's attention-- but it's a start, that if you concentrate hard enough and walk fast enough, you can make the curtains shift. Once, you send a piece of paper over the edge of the kitchen bench, and even though no one's home to see it you get so excited that you almost cry.

  
So you're making progress, you guess. You can't really complain.

  
Until Dave starts seeing you in mirrors.

  
You don't mean it, at first. It's been two and a half weeks, Dave's been out of the house for most of the day, and you've been practising trying to pick things up for so long that you feel like if you become any more nauseous you're just going to combust.

  
He comes into his bedroom while you're trying to tug the blankets off of his bed, and you're so tired, and so annoyed, that without thinking, you try talking to him, forgetting completely for half a beat that he won't be able to hear you. He doesn't, of course, and it makes you mad, so in a spur of the moment fit of rage, you brace yourself, and swear out loud.

  
The lights flicker. Dave glances up at the fixture on his roof, frowning, and then back to the mirror, and then-  
"Fuck!" he stumbles backwards, but it only takes that long for you to disappear again. If you weren't so surprised, you'd curse again.  
"Fuck, f- holy shit," he pants, catching his breath as he braces himself against the side of his bed. He sits down, after a moment, shaking, and puts his head in his hands. "I'm actually going crazy. This is actually a thing that is happening. Holy shit."  
Your hand goes through his face when you try to slap him.

  
[F](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htrfut8AGVc&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn&index=80)rom there on, you seem to have found a new kind of encouragement for your progresses; it becomes a hobby, following Dave around the house and working yourself up enough to get his attention. You appear in mirrors for brief periods of time, looking frantic and debauched, you're sure; you move curtains with light breezes; you stomp up and down the halls at night. Dave is definitely aware that something is going on, after a while, you think: he just isn't acknowledging it. Every time he sees you in a mirror he passes it off with some muttered comment about how he's seeing things, and every time he hears you at night you come back into the room to find that he's put a pillow over his head. He doesn't talk to Bro about it at all, which is frustrating, because you think if you could just get Bro to see or hear you as well then you'd have a pretty compelling case of John the Friendly Ghost on your hands.

  
You have no idea if he's telling his psychiatrist about this, either, but if he is, it's not changing anything: he reacts the exact same way every time, passing it off as nothing and going worlds out of his way to actively ignore the situation. It's frustrating for you, because the idiot hasn't even thought to tell someone or to get a second opinion, and it's not exactly as if you can leave the apartment to go and try to start a game of Ouija with Jade.

  
It takes two weeks and two days before Dave says anything, and it's during dinner, when he's sitting eating in silence on the couch with Bro.  
"So, I'm seeing John," he says, like he's discussing the weather, and Bro chokes on his food.  
"What?" he finally manages, when he's swallowed the food down and gained enough composure to go on.  
"I'm seeing John," Dave says again, around a mouthful of rice. "In like, mirrors and shit. Oh and this one time at the foot of my bed when I'd been awake for like, five seconds." You don't remember that. He shovels another forkful of rice in, but you know him well enough to know that he's just doing it to avoid making the situation too serious.

  
"Dave..." Bro says, like he's debating how to tell a kid that Santa Claus isn't real, "You know he's not... actually there, right?"  
Dave, for a second, you think looks honest-to-God unsure-- your heart beat picks right up, you brace yourself to stand-- but then sighs and picks up his glass, muttering into it glumly when he speaks. "Yeah, I know."

You kind of want to hit a wall.

  
After that, you have no motivation to try to make anything move anymore, so you just lean back against the couch and pretend like you're giving them the silent treatment even though they can't hear you anyway.

  
That's the most Dave talks about it with Bro after that, but you kind of figure that he's been talking to his psychiatrist about it, because from then on every time he sees or hears you he starts doing these stupid breathing exercises and walks in the complete opposite direction. It's driving you crazy.  
You kind of give up on counting days after a while, and you don't want to say that your spirit has been broken, but that's kind of what's happened; you completely lack motivation to do much else other than sit around watching your oblivious housemates.

  
On some particular nights, there will be the odd occasion where you forget yourself and walk past a mirror (not like it matters anymore; Dave avoids them completely) or stub your toe on a wall, and the resulting bump is usually enough to make Dave jump or whimper or start his breathing exercises, usually all three consecutively.

  
It's been two weeks since he stopped acknowledging your existence altogether when he comes home early from school, without Bro, and throws his bag against a wall.

  
"Fuckshit," he says, like it's both a casual statement and an actual word, and storms off to his room. You hear him lock the door.  
One of the upsides to this whole 'not being able to touch anything solid' situation is that it makes it fairly easy for you to get through locked doors, so you hold your breath against the wave of nausea and step through Dave's bedroom door, shuddering afterwards. Then, you turn around to look at him.  
He has his shades on top of his head, but he's not crying; rather, he just looks tired, bags under his eyes that you can't normally see when he's wearing the aviators, the red in his eyes flat. He's muttering nonsensical things to himself under his breath, digging through his drawers for something. It appears, for a moment, that he's only succeeded in pulling all of his clothes out and strewing them along his bedroom floor, before he reaches into the drawer and pulls back the wood.  
Oh, you think. It's kind of like a false bottom.

  
You don't have a chance to wonder what kind of things Dave might be keeping in a false bottom, because all of a sudden you're finding out. He steps back with a razor in his hand, breathing hard, and it's like a punch to the face, a reminder suddenly that yes, those letters were real, Dave actually tried to kill himself, Dave actually had problems, Dave actually owns a razor for those reasons. You stare, frozen to the spot, as he takes it to his wrist.  
Panic sets in as soon as you realise what's happening-- why he looks so concentrated, why he's not crying, why he's locked his door-- and in a sudden surge of panic, you fall forwards towards him, and scream his name.

  
What you don't expect is for him to look up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's short i know hhhh  
> anyway so my laptop is broken at the moment, meaning i have to go to super top secret measures to get any time to write anymore  
> and by super top secret measures i mean media class  
> but anyway  
> ~cliffhanger~


	7. Chapter 7

[F](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN9NC4iQcsA&list=PLzTf8htqJYpqGnbKKxOo8zDxqHYVqL1Qn)or a moment, you both kind of just stand there.

 

Dave doesn't blink, you don't blink.

 

Everything is way too silent.

 

Then he starts doing his breathing exercises.

 

"For fuck's sake, Dave!" you snap, so harshly and suddenly that he jumps and has to brace himself on the edge of his bed, refusing to look at you now.

"Oh my God, no, nope, nope," he mutters under his breath, attempting to do the exercises through the need to hyperventilate; it comes out as a kind of series of gasped breaths, too-fast inhales and too-shuddery exhales that leave him white in the face. "Not real, not real, it's okay, it's just-" he takes in another gasp of air, shakes his head a little and looks at the floor while he talks. "Just like Aranea said. Stress. It's stress." He laughs then, and you almost charge forward to hit him-- probably would have, if you hadn't been so scared your hand would go through him again and he'd go back to not seeing you. "Of course it's stress," he mutters, shaking his head. "You were going to kill yourself, you prick, there's nothing much more stressful than that. Hallucinations of your dead best friend to keep you company, fuckin awesome, thanks brain, really-"

 

"Will you shut up?" you say, and he jumps again. This time he has to muffle a whimper into his hand, and suddenly, it's clear to you that he really hasn't heard your voice for a while now. Regardless, you sigh, take a step closer to him; he flinches again, bites down on his lip so hard the pink turns to white. You contemplate attempting to touch him, but give up and let both hands drop to your side. "Dave, please," you try, and your voice is small. "Please. I'm not... I'm not a hallucination. Please look at me."

 

Begrudgingly, he does. He drags his gaze slowly from the floor to your face, chokes on a breath, but this time, at least, he doesn't look away again.

"John?" he asks, and your blood thrums.

 

"Dave," you say back, unable to get rid of the grin that worms its way onto your face at the thought of this situation. He continues to stare.

Eventually, he looks down again, but only for a moment before he looks back, running a hand through his hair. "I really am crazy," he says, an air of finality to the statement. The look you give him is one of utter contempt.

 

You open your mouth to call him an idiot, but he interrupts with his own rant, talking so fast that his words almost slur, "I can't- I mean- shit, John. This isn't fair. This isn't... normal, right? No, of course it's not normal, you idiot, Dave, you're crazy. Shit, alright, no going back now, can I just..." he sighs, and all of sudden, he's making his way towards you.

He's close enough now that you can see his freckles; see the actual way the pigments in his eyes have made up that particular shade of red, see the way his hair is almost closer to white than it is to blonde. You're so caught up, suddenly, in being the closest to him you have been in almost half a year, that you don't even notice what he's doing until it's too late. Nausea rocks your body, familiar and defeating, and you watch as Dave stares at his hand, sticking straight through your shoulder, and sighs. Then, he jerks away, and continues his rant. "Ooooof fucking course you can't touch him, you idiot, because he's not real, none of this is real, it's-" he turns back to look at you, halfway across the room now, but you're still too taken aback to do much else but stare back. The look Dave is giving you is pained. "Fuck," he says, or breaths, more appropriately, and, "fuck," again, "Maybe I can just... pretend. Five minutes, yeah, okay, God I wish I could just- I wish you were really here, John. I miss you so much. It doesn't- doesn't get any easier, you asshole, every day is the exact same. And this- this, seeing you, you being here but not being here no of course because you're dead- it's not fair, not, fuck."  He says it like it's a closing statement, and sits on his bed, sighing into his hands. His voice is muffled when he speaks again. "I should have just kissed you when I had the chance."

 

You feel blood rush to colour your cheeks. You kick at the corner of his bed, the anger enough that your foot actually hits solid surface for a second, and hiss in pain when it hurts; Dave looks up at the noise, at the rocking of his bed, like for a moment he might think you're real, and then just looks back down again, somewhere on his floor. It takes you a moment to realise that he's looking at the razor.

 

"Oh, no you don't," you tell him, tone harsh enough that his flinches; you walk over to stand in front of him, and he starts to shake. "Dave. Dave. Stop looking at it. Look at me."

 

He does.

 

"I'm real-" you start, but he scoffs, so you shut up long enough to give him an intimidating enough stare that he's quiet again. You clear your throat, and start again. "I'm real, and the only reason you can't touch me is that being dead sucks. Like, wow. I can't tell you how much this sucks, man. Ghostbusters was full of shit. And don't even get me started on Ghost, because wow, that just set me up for disappointment, and let me just fucking-"

He cuts you off again, but this time it's because he's snickering, and the way his face looks when he's trying not to laugh is too nice for you to get mad at him again. So instead you ask, "What's so funny?"

 

"I just-" he waves a hand. "You. You were never this... this angry, I guess. Didn't swear this much. I can't believe this is what my subconscious or whatever thinks of you."

 

You shrug, sitting on the bed next to him. "It's not. Sorry for being angry. Being dead and alone for two months will do that to you."

He snickers again, shaking his head. "And I've got a whole compelling backstory. I'm full of 'em today."

 

You sigh, sharp, the sound cutting Dave. "Look, will you just-" you stop, because you don't know what you want him to do. You don't know what to do in general. Your tone is small and deflated. "I don't know what to do to get you to believe me."

 

You both sit in silence, Dave staring at his hands in his lap, you looking around his room; the photos on his wall you've become even more accustomed to lately than you already were, past Halloweens with the two of you in matching costumes, that one trip to the beach where Dave got sunburnt everywhere except around his eyes where his shades had sat, Christmas with Jade and Rose-

 

Jade and Rose.

 

"Dave," you say, but apparently too loudly or too excitedly because he almost falls over from the sheer shock of the volume of your voice. "I have an idea. Do you remember when... when we were kids, and Jade and her grandpa had that ghost problem in their house?"

 

Dave wrinkles his nose. "Jade? Yeah, but... it wasn't real, John. Ghosts aren't real."

 

"Of course they're real!" you defend, heat flaring up in you at the thought that he was so easily accusing you of not being real. "Why would Jade make something like that up?"

 

"She was-" he shrugs, sighs, and runs a hand through his hair; once upon a time you would have found that movement incredibly hot, but right now, the only hot thing is the blood rushing to your face and the temperature of your conversation. "Some people believe in them, I guess. She was a kid. Kids believe in all kinds of stupid crap."

 

"Yeah, but she still believes in them now," you point out. Dave doesn't look at you, but his jaw tightens.

 

"Call them," you say.

 

He looks up. "Huh?"

 

"Call Jade and Rose. They can- they'll come over, and they'll see me, and then you'll have to believe me."

 

He looks unsure for a second, but you start to usher him off of his bed and after a moment he complies, sighing. "They're still in school, y'know," he mutters, but dials Rose's number anyway. You wait.

 

Muffled, you hear Rose's voice come through the line, but it's not a hello so you assume she's bitching at Dave for leaving school early.

He starts talking before she finishes. "Rose- yeah, shut up, I know- I'm fine- I think. Rose! I felt sick, but I'm fine now. I need to talk to you and Jade about something, can you come over?" Silence as Rose talks on the other end. Dave's face screws up. "Yeah, I know that. So skip? Not like it'd be the first time. Of course I care about Jade, don't be a bitch- oh, hey Jade. I'm fine. Can you guys come over? Thanks, I-" there's a scuffle on the other end of the life, and then Rose's voice again. Dave bites his lip when she's talking, eyes trained on you long enough to make you shift uncomfortably. "Um..." he says. "Um, so. John's kind of... like, standing right next to me." There is silence on the other end for a very long moment. Then, muffled, you hear Rose ask him to repeat himself. "John's standing right next to me. Well, sitting. He's sitting on my bed right now. Yeah- no, it's not like that. I know what Aranea said. I- shut up for a second. He won't go away." He sighs, looks at you again, and then speaks into the phone fast and quiet, probably to try and mask what he's saying, "YesItriedthebreathingexercisesohmyGodshutupforasecond. He told me to call you guys. Can I talk to Jade again?" He looks at you, this time, almost sympathetically, like he's trying to convey an apology through his eyes, but it only lasts as long as it takes for Rose to hand the phone to Jade. He explains himself quickly, with less interruptions now because Jade's giving him a chance, you guess. The conversation is over in a few minutes, and he hangs up, collapsing back on his bed with his head in his hands.

He doesn't talk to you until they get there, but then again, you don't talk to him either.

 

Jade comes in first, red in the cheeks and messy hair and- oh, God, it hurts, you hadn't realised how long it had been since you last saw your cousin and it hurts seeing her like this now, eyes wild as she searches the room when she first comes in. Rose is next to her, but she's just looking at Dave, tight lipped and looking like she's trying not to cry. It takes you a disappointing total of three seconds to figure out that neither of them can see you.

 

"So, where is he?" Jade asks, but she looks right past you.

 

"He's..." Dave seems to realise that they can't see you, too, and sighs. "He's in here. And you can't see him, um. Look, I know I'm probably crazy-"

"I didn't think we'd be able to see him," Jade interrupts, much to Rose's distaste. "That's not how ghosts work. This one time, when my grandpa was a kid, he could see and talk to this ghost just because he was the only one who believed it existed. And, like, he'd had longer to bond with it, or something. If John's really here-"

"Jade," Rose says. Jade shuts her mouth, looks embarrassed. It hurts. "Dave, you know I'm a logical person."

"You write wizard porn."

"I've always been a logical person. However, Jade has brought to my attention that it would be wise to hear you out, if not just because in every cliché of a movie ever the bitch who doesn't stop to listen is always the first to die. So." She takes a deep breath, and then offers him a smile, albeit small. "We'll give this a chance. We would have been here earlier, but Jade insisted we go to her house first to retrieve her Ouija board."

As if rehearsed, Jade takes out her aforementioned Ouija board from her bag and rattles the box.

 

You don't want to get your hopes up, but you swear to God Dave almost smiles.

 

You follow your three best friends up to Dave's bedroom, trailing behind them with a certain air of awkwardness. Dave keeps accidentally looking at you.

 

It's kind of hilarious, actually. Watching Jade kick clothes out of the way so that the three of them can gather around in a triangular formation on Dave's floor, spilling the contents of the box kind of clumsily and then attempting in vain to set the thing up the right way. Dave has, intentionally or otherwise, left a large enough gap next to he and Jade for you to sit, so you do, crossing your legs just as the others have despite the fact that it feels silly and childish.

 

"Should we light some candles?" Jade asks, teeth worrying her bottom lip.

 

Dave slaps her arm lightly. "We're not summoning him, you idiot, he's right here."

 

Jade slaps him back. "I know that, dickbag, but usually whenever grandpa did this he'd light some candles."

 

"I don't even think I own any candles, holy shit."

 

"Are you really expecting me to believe that you don't have an alarmingly large amount of scented candles?"

 

Dave's cheeks pinken. You can easily vouch for what Jade just insinuated.

 

"I might," he says after a moment, clearing his throat. "Have one or two scented candles sitting around. Like, Rose might have left some-"

"I can assure you I did not-"

 

"-here when she last stayed over or something. And I may or may not exactly where she might have left them."

 

Dave gets up to retrieve a pack of four lavender scented candles from his wardrobe, and you watch on, unsure as to whether you should be amused or horrified, while your three friends set them up around the Ouija board and light them accordingly.

 

"What next?" Dave asks in a satirical tone. "Should we hold hands and chant in Latin?"

 

"Should we alert the Winchester brothers as to John's arrival?" Rose offers, raising her eyebrows. "Should I make the phone call? Who you gonna call?"

 

"When there's something strange in your neighbourhood, you call Jade motherfucking Harley," Jade concedes, nodding her head and grinning at her own joke. "Now. No hand holding, I don't think, but, er," she looks at Dave, "Is John..."

 

"Here right now?" Dave offers. "Yep. Right between you and I, Harley."

 

"Oh," Jade says, tone mildly alarmed, and looks in vain at the space between her and Dave. She's looking at your neck. "Uh... hi, John!" she waves. You smile at her despite yourself.

 

"Hey," you say, voice weak.

 

Jade looks at Dave after a moment, chewing her lip. Dave shrugs. "He says hey."

 

"Right." Jade claps her hands together, peering at the Ouija board before her. You can see Rose shooting Dave concerned glances every now and then, but for the most part she remains composed.

 

"Since we don't need to summon John, we can get right to the fun part. I've never actually, um," she rubs the back of her neck. "I've never actually done this myself before. But I've watched my grandpa do it heaps of times! And it looks pretty easy, so... I'll hold the planchette."

"What the fuck is a 'plash-shit'?"

"The planchette is the small triangular device, I believe," Rose says, looking at the plachette thoughtfully. "It's what the spirit uses to spell out words, correct?"

"Correct," Jade acknowledges, and picks up the planchette. From the angle you're sitting at, it's kind of hard to see a way you'd be able to manouver it around the letters, but you lean in front of Dave and sort of manage-- not before he flinches-- to find a way to reach it. Of course then, as expected, your fingers go straight through.

 

You swear internally, panic setting in as you realise that you might not be able to do this at all for the simple reason that you literally cannot touch anything. Jade, blissfully unaware, clears her throat and starts talking anyway.

 

"John, if you can hear me," she says, in a foreboding voice, and despite Rose's stifled giggle at the tone you happen to know that she's being completely serious, "and you are here with us, right now, move the planchette to 'yes'."

 

You focus as hard as you can-- sweat beading at the back of your neck, chest aching from a held breath-- and try to fix your fingers to the piece of plastic.

 

For a second, you manage. And then you realise that Jade has no idea what she's doing. Her grip on the planchette is too hard, at first, for you to even be able to begin to move the triangle to the three printed letters you need to reach. She stares hard, brow furrowed, not seeing as you struggle to move it from her vice grip. Then she seems to clue in to the fact that she's doing it wrong-- _and presses even harder_.

 

"Do you need to move it through me?" she continues in the same deep tone as before. "Do you need to communicate through me? John, if you can hear me, and you are here with us, right now, move the planchette to-"

 

Before she can finish, frustrated, you sigh a sharp breath, and whack the planchette from her grip.

 

And then everyone in the room freezes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was actually gonna write more but I love cliffhangers too much lmao  
> Apologies for any format (specifically spacing) errors, but the server I'm working on due to the MULTIPLE viruses on my own can only handle internet explorer, two tabs at a time, zoomed in and set to the bottom right of the screen (so part of the screen gets cut off and I literally cannot edit on this computer, I am thanking the Gods I can even post this chapter right now)  
> Yeah  
> Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments!!! :) Everyone has been really sweet and supportive, ilu. <33


	8. Chapter 8

[T](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WinkoZiOYQc)he silence that stretches on throughout the room is enough, immediately, to make you feel bad for throwing the planchette. So you cross the room sheepishly, pick it up-- your hand shakes, it makes you feel sick, and you almost drop it three times but you pick it up-- and place it back on the board in front of Jade.

She lets out a breath. "Well. Shit."

"You're all seeing this, right," says Dave. "I'm not crazy, please tell me you're all seeing this."

As if on cue, all three of you turn to Rose. Her mouth is hanging open very slightly, eyes almost comically wide, but when she catches you all looking at her-- or more appropriately, catches Jade and Dave looking at her-- she swallows and attempts to compose herself. "Well, I... can't really think of any feasible explanation for this. I believe what Jade said sums up my feelings on the matter."

"Shit," she says again, and lets out a hysterical laugh, grin splitting her face. "Shit, he's actually-he's here, Dave! And Rose said you were crazy, I can't believe- where is he sitting, is he right next to you?"

"Uh..." Dave looks at you properly for the first time since all four of you entered the room, like he can't believe you're there; which he can't. "Y-yeah, he's... uh, he's right there."

"Hi, John!" Jade says, in her regular upbeat cheery voice, and oh, oh God-- oh God, you feel like you're going to cry, it's so lovely, it's so Jade to see her get all excited like this; she's looking at the bottom half of your face, this time, and when she starts waving enthusiastically at you, you can see tears forming in her eyes. You wave back shyly, smiling around the biting urge to burst into tears.

"Hey, Jade," you say, voice kind of broken, but for once, it's not completely sad.

After a moment, she looks to Dave hopefully. He's still too shocked to smile, so he swallows and says, "He says, um, hey."

"John, are you really-" Rose stops around a breath, sharp. "Oh- here!" You watch as she scrambles-- actually scrambles, you don't think you've ever seen her do that before-- forward to put the planchette in the middle of the board and put two fingers from each hand on it. It looks more professional than whatever Jade was doing, so, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand, you hurry forward to sit closer to the board, placing your own fingers on it.

It's a lot easier, this time, and you wonder if it has something to do with the properties of the board or the way Rose is holding the planchette;  tongue out, concentrating hard, you spell out M-I-S-S-Y-O-U. Rose looks up, approximately an inch left of where your eyes are, and laughs around her tears.

"We miss you too," Jade says, and now everyone's crying but Dave. His jaw is tight, and he's frowning slightly, staring at you still like he's not sure if you're real. Sniffling pathetically, you reach up and hold your hand up for him. It takes him a second to realise what you mean. When he does, his eyes light up briefly, arms uncrossing, and he reaches out slowly. His fingers go through yours, so you back your hand up a bit, and simply rest your palm against his barely an inch from touching, and just look at him. The force of his swallow his hard enough that you know he's trying desperately not to cry.

"You're all wimps," you say after a moment, dropping your hand from Dave's to laugh and wipe at your own tears again, pathetically.

His lips twitch in and out of a smile twice before he gives up and just grins at you.

"What?" Jade asks, leaning forward.

He looks at her like he'd forgotten she was there. "Uh-- he, uh, says you guys are, um."

You roll your eyes and lean forward to spell the word out on the board. All through your fingers runs an electric feeling like giddiness, present both in your limbs and your head and your tongue when you speak. Your friends are actually here, they're actually talking to you, they believe you and they're speaking to you right now; when you thought you'd never get to talk to them again.

Rose rolls her eyes at your comment.

"He's crying, too," Dave points out, and it's at that point that he finally gives up and laughs a singular, hysterical laugh that lets you know his tears are finally spilling down his face without even having to look.

You all just sit there crying and laughing for a while, and you're so relieved. If this is the best you're gonna get, you'll take it, because you'd missed them so much-- your three best friends, one of which you're in love with, and they're right here. That's such a precious thing. You hadn't even realised how much you needed that until now.

"So- wait," Rose says, wiping at her running mascara. "Dave can see you all the time, is that correct?"

"He can now," you say aloud.

Dave shifts. "I can now."

Rose nods, thinking a moment. Then, cautiously, she says, "So, theoretically, you're saying that there could be a way for Jade and I to see you, also?"

"Maybe," you say, honestly. You mean to direct it at Rose but you end up looking at Dave anyway. "It took me ages to even be able to get this far. Everything takes practise, and it's kind of really exhausting."

There's a three second pause before Dave turns to Rose and repeats the gist of what you told him, which is frustrating, because even though he can't be expected to remember your exact wording of every phrase, having to talk to someone as classy and eloquent as Rose through Captain Does Not Give Two Shits is mildly frustrating, because you're pretty sure he just said "took him a while to even be able to work up the ghost juice to show himself to me, and doing new stuff is tiring."

Rose doesn't seem to mind. She looks to the space near your left cheek. "Do you think you could try? To let Jade and myself see you, I mean?"

You take a breath. You hadn't really thought about it, just trying... normally, what you do is you practise envisioning yourself as a whole person when no one's home, and then occasionally you'll appear for brief flashes of times when you work yourself up enough around Dave; today has been a whole other occurrence, though, you figure, what with Dave being able to see and hear you perfectly. Maybe you could just... kind of...

Jade gasps, slapping a hand down on Rose's thigh and clenching her fingers. Rose's own jaw drops, both their gazes focussed on you for all of five seconds before they both exhale and go back to not looking directly at you.

"Holy... wow!" Jade says, hand on her mouth. "Shit!"

"Shit," Rose agrees. "It will obviously take some practise, but..."

The but is implied, she doesn't need to say it. All three of your friends are practically beaming at the thought that things could go back to normal. Or, as close to normal as the situation would allow.

Rose clears her throat suddenly, at Dave. "Have you two talked about... you know." She waves a hand.

Dave stares at her blankly. You start to reciprocate the look, before you realise exactly what she's talking about and go red. You try, belatedly, to stop her with frantic hand gestures, but she can't see you still.

Lucky for you Rose is smart, and seems to pick up on the situation even before Dave has time to turn around and catch you making an idiot of yourself with wild hand gestures; she closes her mouth, and looks... smug? Self-righteous? You have to credit the girl for getting past the whole talking-to-a-ghost thing and getting onto the important-romantic-matters this quickly; she's always been good like that.

"Well... I was meant to be home a while ago, I should be leaving. Jade, would you mind escorting me?"

"Oh- yeah! Sure," Jade fumbles, realising the situation a beat too late. You assume Rose has filled her in; what with you being dead and there not really being much of a need to keep the secret anymore. They're best friends, you wouldn't be surprised if she'd told her way before Dave had even acknowledged his crush on you and- yeah, there you go thinking about it again. You realise it's been a while since you've actually gotten the chance to think about the situation in that kind of light, and wow, there go the feelings again. You guess that's the kind of thing being dead can't stifle.

You trail behind Dave kind of ineptly, waving goodbye to Rose and Jade. They wave back, but you're not sure if they can actually see you. You figure it will take a lot of practise.

Of course, then as soon as the door's shut, there's a more pressing issue at hand: what the hell are you supposed to say to Dave?

He sort of gestures back in the direction of his bedroom, so you nod once and the two of you start walking there in silence. He keeps sneaking glances at you, but you know he's pretending not to care. He's got his hands in his pockets and his jaw has gone tight; he does this, you've picked up, when he's trying too hard to look like he doesn't give a shit. Even if he gives multiple shits, which is always.

Dave's just like that.

Once you reach his bedroom, he closes the door behind you, the sound reverberating in the small room somehow. It makes you feel sort of hollow all of a sudden.

You expect Dave to be the first one to speak-- not to be matter-of-fact but at least to say some coy, half-assed thing about the situation-- but instead are met with an empty silence. He sits down on his bed, and you go over to sit next to him.

After the silence gets too awkward to bear, you say, "So."

Dave's lips twitch into a barely-there smirk. "So."

You shift awkwardly. He mirrors it accidentally.

"I'm sor-"

"What the fuck, John," he snaps, interrupting you, and you close your mouth with a surprised look on your face. Dave's teeth are bared, and his hands are in his hair, shades almost askew on his face. He never looks like this.

"Dave, I-"

"No! No, fuck, you-" he stands up suddenly, jerking a finger in your face that would have hit you in the nose had you been a solid object. You blink dejectedly at it. "You can't just do that! You can't just go and do a stupid thing like that, and- and- expect thing to go back to normal! Fuck, man, I _needed_ you-"

"Excuse me," you interrupt, standing up with him- the height difference has never been more evident- and trying your best to get in his face. "But I believe you started this, Dave."

"Start- started it?" he stammers, like he can't believe you'd say something like that. "Trying to kill myself isn't starting it, you jackass. I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Um, hello?" you gesture to yourself. " _Dead._ "

"Yeah, still a little pissed about that," Dave says, like it's a reasonable thing to be 'a little pissed' about."

You feel your face go red, you feel the storm roll on- no, fuck that, the thing going on inside of you right now is a goddamned hurricane. You brace yourself in Dave's face, giving his chest a poke you imagine would hurt if your finger didn't go straight through him. "Of all the _selfish_ things you've done, Dave Strider. I don't blame you for my death. I don't. But I blame you for yours, or- almost for yours, I guess- and I blame you for writing those _fucking letters_. Do you know where my body is, right now, because you couldn't just tell me something as simple as... as what was written in those letters? _In a hole, in the ground._ Stomach full of sleeping pills. Actually no, fuck that, because decomposition probably- probably blew me open long ago, y'know?"

Dave is silent. You go on.

"I am _cold_ and _dead_ and pretty soon I won't even _be here_ \- I won't even have a body, and I will cease to physically exist on this planet, all because you couldn't open your mouth about a _stupid_ crush-"

"They cremated you," he interrupts, quietly.

You stop, caught between the words you were trying to yell and the tears- when did you even start crying? "Huh?" you choke, dazed.

"They cremated you," he says again, louder, but this time his voice breaks and you realise he's crying. You so, so desperately want to just reach up, pluck his shades off of his face; make it like in the movies, how the hero can just kiss the love interest out of nowhere and everything will work its way out from there. You don't even mind that you've never kissed a boy; you shouldn't have taken the ability for granted when you had it, and now, well. Look where taking that ability for granted has gotten you.

"Look, John," he says; there's this perpetual break in his voice, like it broke a long time ago and just stayed one octave sadder than normal, "just... forget everything you read in those letters, okay? It was stupid of me to write them. Please don't bring them up again."

" _Maybe I don't want to forget_ ," you sob, hopeless; and yes, honestly, there is something very hopeless about wanting to kiss someone and hit someone with equal intensities and not being able to do either; this is your Hades, your true underworld and Hell if you've ever believed in it, only it's not, because you're not trapped, you're just caught: here is Purgatory, and Dave is the thing tying you to it. You raise your voice. "Maybe I don't wanna forget about the letters, Dave, because _maybe I liked you back_. Did you ever even- ever even _think_ about that, you idiot, you never bothered to tell me a thing. I can't _believe_ how selfish you are, you just assumed that I didn't..." you trail off. You don't know how to end the sentence, but apparently, you don't need to, because Dave drops completely silent anyway, mouth open a little. You cry hopeless, silent tears of anger while the silence drones on.

Dave looks like he's maybe about to say something, but then you both hear the front door open and Bro calls out for him, and- yeah, there goes any chance of this conversation happening right now. You sigh as you watch him scurry for an excuse to leave the room.

" _Dave_ ," Bro calls again, hurrying towards the stairs; he catches sight of Dave once he's at the top of them, and you've never seen the guy look more relieved in his life. He actually clutches his chest. "I thought-" he shakes his head, but he doesn't need to say it out loud. Bro clears his throat. "I got a call from your school, sayin' you left early. Mind tellin' me what happened?"

"Felt sick," Dave says, passing it off with a shrug. "Didn't think you would mind if I skipped home economics too much. I feel better now, though, don't go all knotting your panties over me or nothin'." You're angry, but you can't exactly pretend like Dave's southern accent slipping isn't the most attractive thing in the world. You hope to god he doesn't turn around to see your angry-cool-guy facade slipping with what he'd call a serious case of the dokis.

Bro's eyebrows shoot over the top of his shades. "You sure, man?" he asks.

Dave shrugs again. "I mean, yeah. I'm cool. Ice cold over here."

"Al...right," Bro says, brows shooting back down only to furrow together. It's always strange to you, seeing the Striders convey emotion like, well, real human beings. "Do you wanna have dinner down here with me, or something? If you're feelin' better we could... order some pizza or something. Watch a movie on Netflix."

"Nah. Thanks anyway, Bro, but I'm alright," Dave says, already retreating. "I'll come back down later if I'm hungry. I think I might actually hit the hay right now."

"It's four thirty," Bro calls after him, but he's already practically back at his room. You follow awkwardly.

Once you get in there, you find Dave sitting on the edge of his bed awkwardly, so you go to join him. The distance between you is practically only an inch or two, but it feels like a mile instead. Here is the place you have come to die for good.

"How long?" Dave asks.

"What?"

"How long have you... liked me back for?"

You take a deep breath. Your lungs expand. Collapse. Expand. You should be used to this feeling. "Wow, okay, uh... a really long time, I guess? I think I've always liked you. I mean, no, that sounds dumb that's like- that's what they say in the movies, I mean. 'I've always liked you'. I just mean I think it was bound to happen from the moment we met, is all. You were always that special to me, that I- I don't know. I only became sort of, um, aware of it a couple of years ago, though."

"A couple of years?" Dave asks, looking like he's hoping- begging- for you to tell him you're kidding. You shrug, unaffiliated.

It's quiet, again, which seems to be a reoccurring subject with you two lately. After a moment, Dave puts his hand over yours. The way it goes through you is actually kind of pretty, with your similar skin tones. It's really, really nice.

"So... I've got a dead guy for a best friend, huh?"

You laugh, this breathy little exhale that doesn't actually make a whole lot of noise. Dave's nose crinkles up like it always does when he's trying too hard not to smile, but he ends up doing it anyway.

"Egbert the friendly ghost," you say, through your smile. Dave chokes on a laugh.

"Yeah man, dibbs being Wendy."

"Nah, man, Cat was where it was at."

Dave scoffs. "Excuse you. Wendy was a witch. Magic beats ghost fanatic dead-beat father any day."

"You are not mocking the second best ghost movie of all time, I am not hearing this."

"What's the first best-"

"Oh my God, Dave, do not even say that to me, do not even pretend like you don't know it's Ghostbusters."

The two of you fall back into your regular pace of conversation, and- it's nice, nostalgic, like old times. Your lungs feel like they're working normally for just a little while.

It's so familiar that it's like you never even stopped.

You explain the whole ghost situation to him- how you can't touch much and you definitely can't touch other people- and then he has to go downstairs for dinner because he feels bad about ditching Bro, so you, awkwardly, choose to stay in his room and opt for the lonelier activity of lying down on his bed, watching the cars going by outside blurring the streetlights blurring the obscure Texan sky's colours; the reds, the oranges, the whites, all on the chipped paint of his ceiling, and it's far more endearing than it should be. Your central compass edges North for a while.

Dave slips back into his room some time after ten, shutting all the hallway light out and leaving them both only with the venetian prison-bar patterns.

"Hey," you whisper, even though you don't really have to at all.

"Hey," he whispers back.

You sit up and move out of the way so that he can get back into bed, the motion shifting, for a second, the air by Dave's shoulder. He tries to hide his smile.

Once he's lying down, and you're sitting awkwardly at the end of his bed, unsure what to do, he moves over and makes room for you.

"Sleep with me?" he asks, unsure.

"Can't. Don't do that anymore," you whisper back, but you're climbing next to him anyway.

Dave rests his hand next to yours, a fingernail away from touching, and oh, if only you could. In the dark of his room, you so badly want to reach out and touch him, trace the veins on the back of his hand, down his wrist; the labyrinth that runs right to his heart, to your home. You want to run your fingers along the dip in his collar bones, through his hair, over his lips.

Dave is very pretty when he's sleeping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> w h o a, i did not mean to not update for like three weeks, it kind of just....,,happened.  
> uh.  
> yeah.  
> sorry for that! it's summer now, i'm on break from school and i should be able to start updating, like, multiple times a week. (especially now that it's gonna get hecka cute and hecka angsty, oh my. good angsty, though, don't stop reading like 'lmao nah son none of this feelings-y shit im out'. romance angsty. kissi n g ?? who knows it is a mystery)  
> on another note, i've edited the chapters so that there are links to songs in them. some of the songs (most of the songs/all of the songs) correlate with the actual chapter's contents, and also they're most likely songs i listened to when i wrote the chapters, so yeah idk go crazy man music makes everything more dramatic.  
> also, on another note, thank you all so much for all the support i've been getting!! everything on ao3 is soooo super nice, like wow guys, thank you v much for all of your lovely comments and "omg you ruined my life fuck you" asks on tumblr. i'm tearing up a little. it's a writer's best wish for her writing to ruin someone's life, y'know? shit sons.  
> so yeah. hehe. thank you all for that. ilu lots. :)


	9. Chapter 9

[B](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV0LJ0Dnl7A)eing dead is kind of weird enough on its own; imagine being dead  _and_ having to get used to someone seeing you. Dave still leaves for school during the day—that's only expected of him, even though the next morning he tries to fake being sick to get out of it (but goes anyway once Rose texts him advising he at least shows for the math test)—and you stick to your usual routine of wandering around the house, idly tracing your hands through things and musing at the nausea that the act brings. Sometimes Bro is there, and he’ll promptly ignore you, going about his own business without the knowledge that his younger brother’s dead best friend is watching him burn his hand on the stovetop and have an argument with a bag of Cheetos for ten minutes straight. The only difference between now and then is that at the end of the day, when Dave comes home and throws his bag to one side of his room, he then turns to you and says hello.

It’s disconcerting, at first; he comes into his room, throws his bag, kicks his shoes, sheds his shades, and says, “Dude, don’t stare, that’s so creepy.” You jump, because you’re not expecting it. It had been so long, before, that you had to get used to not being acknowledged at all; Dave’s casual tone throws you off. He notices the way you kind of flinch and jump and comes to sit next to you on the bed, throwing you a crooked smile.

“Sorry, you’ve probably been bored all day. Wanna watch a movie?”

“How was your day?” you ask instead, because it’s not as if your existence has suddenly made Dave better or anything. As expected, he sighs and looks down at his hands.

“I, uh,” he makes a slight slicing motion with his hand, but it shakes. “On my wrist, in the bathroom. Kind of felt like the walls were closing in on me for a while.”

You sort of know what he means, about the walls closing in. You can’t imagine what it would be like to feel that way for no particular reason, though, but you figure it’s scary. Must be why he’s shaking so much, or why he’s not looking at you. You reach out to touch his hand but give up at the last second, not wanting to freak him out with the gesture he’s since told you he finds just a little disturbing. Instead, you opt for clicking to get his attention and staring straight, shatteringly so, into his eyes.

“Dave,” you say, calmly, “you don’t ever do that again. Okay?”

His mouth falls open and shut, like a fish. Then screws up in a grimace. “Dude, I can’t promise something like that. What if-”

“What if nothing, asshole,” you say, and to your surprise, your voice breaks. Dave’s head snaps up from where he’s been looking down at his thumbs, eyes wide. You swallow, embarrassed to feel tears prickling in your eyes. “I don’t care if- if you’re having the worst day in the world, okay, just don’t hurt yourself like that ever again. Go and throw some rocks in the parking lot, or get Rose and Jade to take you somewhere you can slash the shit out of a painting or something, or- or- or come home to me, if it’ll help, I don’t know. Just-please,” you say, and your tears are definitely threatening to spill now. You draw your knees up to your chest self-consciously. “I can’t deal with the thought that you’re hurting yourself, especially when I’m not there to stop you. I mean, you’re my best friend, y’know? I care about you more than anyone.”

Dave’s mouth is in a perfectly straight line, eyes downcast as he thinks about this. Neither of you comments on the ‘best friend’ thing. It’s only been a week like this, and already you’re starting to wonder if he even  _heard_ you when you said you liked him back. You can’t exactly blame him, though; it’s not like he can kiss you.

“Alright,” he says, startling you out of your thoughts. “I won’t. I’ll try. For you.”

“Not for me,” you interrupt. “For you. I don’t want you to even  _want_ to hurt yourself, Dave.”

“But I-”

“Can’t help it, I get that. I’m sorry, I’m not mad at you, just, like- if you need to talk about it, I’m here, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, thanks, man, I just.”

It’s a sentence enough on its own. You nod, understanding.

And that’s that.

The movie he picks for the two of you to watch is utter bullshit, which is only to be expected in the Strider household. Not even being dead warrants you the right to pick a goddamned movie for once.

In said movie, Some Guy is trying in earnest to win the heart of Some Girl, only Some Girl is actually the antagonist, and Some Guy is too involved with his own personal dramas regarding one superficial and incredibly distracting Overweight Comic Relief in a Polo. The entire movie is set up with terrible jokes and bad special effects, with a plot that runs so deep you’re surprised no one is making any Inception jokes. Dave seems to find it brilliant though, laughing at the most inappropriate moments (when Overweight Comic Relief in a Polo reveals his softer side by crying about his mother’s very sudden and very unnecessary death, or when some terribly animated tentacle tries to attack Some Guy on his way back from said woman’s funeral) and going way too into detail with his theories on what the movie is ‘trying to say’.

You want to find it annoying, but watching Dave in his element of irony is too great to make fun of. (Much.) You can’t actually remember the last time you saw him smile like that, a genuine smartass smile on as he chattered away effortlessly about some godforsaken topic. Fuck, you’re in love. The realisation hits you like you’ve run into a wall; all shock and acceptance. You don’t know  _what_ to do about your feelings now.

Towards the end of the movie, Some Guy and Some Girl end up together despite all of their differences (the main one sort of being that Some Girl almost kills Some Guy, like, half a dozen times in the space of one hour), engaging in one of the most uncomfortable kiss scenes in all of history. You still melt a little in spite of yourself, a sucker for a good dramatic kiss in any kind of movie; Dave rolls his eyes, but you know he’s got his thing about anti-idealism in romance, so you’re sure he’s totally freaking out on the inside. You fiddle with your thumbs.

“So, uh…” Dave says, startling you, yet again, out of your thoughts.

“Yeah?” you prompt, when he doesn’t go on.

He scratches his neck kind of awkwardly. “About…uh…those letters you read."

You look up properly, letting him know he has your full attention. He just continues to look uncomfortable. "How many did you... uh... actually read?"

You don't even blink. "All of them."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Um... so like, both boxes?"

Your head snaps back up. "Boxes? Like, plural?"

"Oh- well-" Dave looks surprised, too. "I mean, the shoebox, too. The one that was on top of the bigger box."

You just continue to stare at him with wide eyes. Eventually, he smirks. "So you didn't even get through the worst of them. Oh man, lucky. Shit's embarrassing."

"I wanna see!" you blurt out, and then look embarrassed at the stare he gives you. "I mean, I've already come this far, right? What more embarrassing things could you even, um, write?"

He snorts. "Wow, thanks, dude." You elbow him.

"You know what I mean, jackass. Please let me read them?"

"Nah."

"But! I said please and everything. Come ooooon, Dave-"

"I said nah," he says, and you'd keep pushing, but right before you open your mouth again you catch just the slightest pink tink to his cheeks, and wonder what he means by embarrassing. You give up on the argument, but not on your curiosity.

The weeks start to pass less slowly once Dave figures out how to keep you entertained while he's gone. At first, he tries setting up his laptop with youtube videos, but they only go for so long and the laptop goes idle if you leave it for too long, so that doesn't work. You find much the same situation with movies, but then it occurs to the both of you to just leave the tv on, and hey, it's better than having  _nothing_ to do all day.

Rose and Jade start visiting every couple of days to come and see you, talking to you through Dave and keeping you updated on their lives. (You'd keep them updated on yours, but they'd probably get tired of you talking about a three hour documentary on birds after a couple of seconds.)

Rose prompts you to practise appearing to them more and more, urging you to push through the nausea when you want to touch something. It doesn't really work; mainly, it's just frustrating for everyone to hold their breaths while you try humiliatingly to pick up a pen for an hour straight.

You do make  _some_ progress, you reason. Sometimes you run into walls, and Jade and Rose are able to see and hear you a lot more frequently. On one particular day, you manage to hold a face to face conversation with them for almost an hour before you get tired and flicker out.

Dave makes progress, too. You call it progress because he sticks to his word about not self harming again and starts talking to you a lot more openly. You know the former for sure, because you make him show you, every day when he gets home, just in case. There was one time when he almost relapsed, he tells you, when he gets home from school early on a Wednesday and kicks the shit out of his backpack. Some stupid asshole made some really bad suicide joke, and then the entire class committed to an overdramatic series of whispers and stares right at Dave. He stormed out as soon as the bell went and came straight home without telling anyone.

When he tells you this, your first instict is to hug him, and your second is to ask him to talk about it with you. You do neither, though, and instead tell him to call Bro so that he doesn't worry. The minute he hangs up the phone you and he spend the next two hours screaming about how stupid everyone is. 

Dave tells you that he likes talking to you better than he likes talking to his psychiatrist, because you understand. You let him get angry when he needs to- you get angry  _with_ him- you let him cuss about all the people he hates, you prompt him to talk about  _why_ he's gonna get better, not just the fact that he needs to.

"Seriously, what's the point?" he says one day, when the two of you are talking about how pathetic mental health care is. "I mean, I get that there  _is_ one, but you think they'd, like, tell you or something. Like, 'hey, stop being sad, because  _life has a point_ '. She just sits there the entire session treating me like I'm purposely flipping my middle finger up at society by not fitting a mental criteria."

"It's like breaking a leg," you agree, nodding. "Obviously you need to fix the leg, so you can run and jump and walk and do all that other stuff you love so much, but they never  _tell_ you that. They just say, well, obviously you need to fix your leg so that you can be a functioning member of society again. It's never actually about you, or your leg."

"They stopped talking about putting me on meds," he says.

"That's good," you prompt.

"No," he says, "it's not. It means either their think I'm getting better, or they're giving up on me."

Your expression softens. "What's wrong with the former?"

He shrugs. "Doesn't feel like it, that's all."

You think for a minute, playing with your fingers. Then you suggest, "Maybe you should write me letters again. I mean, not for me to read, if you don't want to. But that was helping at one point, right?"

He looks taken aback, for a second. Then, very slowly, he seems to register the benefit of writing you letters, and nods, very slowly, as if only to himself. "Yeah... yeah, you're right. That's actually a really great idea, thanks man."

You shrug. "No problem."

So he starts writing you letters again.

It's not often, and it's never in front of you, but you know he's doing it because every so often he'll put a new envelope away in a shoebox you discover he keeps at the back of his closet. You don't know how you didn't find it last time- probably it ended up in the pile with the rest of his stuff- but it's still there now, even if he shuts the door before you ever get a good look. Which is frustrating.

After another month, you manage to pick up a pen for long enough to scrawl your name in long, messy handwriting. It comes out looking like a five year old wrote it, but Jade applauds you like it's the most amazing thing she's ever seen anyway.

Eventually, when Dave leaves for school, you start snooping around, trying to get into the closet. You wouldn't  _dare_ tell him this, or even tell him you've made progress with being able to touch doorhandles; you're too worried he'll freak out and try and hide the box or something. Which would be bad, because really, you're getting pretty close to being able to just wrench the thing open and tear into his letters.

Rose notices your improvement, though, and comments on how maybe soon you'll even be able to touch other people. She punctuates this with a very deliberate wink and a gesture with her head at Dave, who's too busy trying not to lose to Jade at Moral Kombat to notice. You turn red even though he clearly hasn't heard. Despite the fact that neither of you have breathed a word about whatever romantic progress you've made, if any at all, Rose seems to get it anyway.

Speaking of which: you've made barely any. On the days that you and Dave do talk about it, it's mainly just swapping stories of times when your crushes on each other got in the way of other things, like the time you got so insanely jealous thinking that Dave and Jade were dating behind your back that you ignored his texts for a week, or the time that you all went to a themepark together and Dave refused to go on the ghost train with you because he was scared you'd freak out and hold his hand and he was too afraid he might not be able to stop himself from kissing you.

The stories make you both laugh, fondly, like you're recalling memories from decades ago, when maybe you still had a chance at things. The worst part is the tone Dave uses, the bitter hint of 'could of' at the end of all of his sentences. It's clear how much he regrets not just making a move on you when he had the chance. Every so often, he'll finish a story with a sigh and a tiny shake of his head, like he's so completely sorry; like he's lost his chance entirely.

He talks about you like... well, like you're dead.

Which is fair enough, considering the circumstances, but still. You wish he'd just... encourage you more, is all. Lay his hand over yours while you're lying in bed together, or prompt you to try touching him more. Hell, you wish he'd just  _say_ something, clue you in to what he's feeling  _now._ It occurrs to you one morning that maybe he's lost feelings for you completely.

You sit on his bed with your head in your hands, bewildered by the fact that you didn't think of it sooner: there's a really, really great chance that Dave's moved on and found someone who's, like, currently alive. You guess it would be rude to blame him if he did, but the thought still makes your eyes water and your stomach tense up.

You mean to bring it up with him when he gets home, but he's so excited about having an "actual,  _real_ good day" that you can't bring yourself to. His mental health comes before your love life, always.

So eventually, he starts to make more progress than you. There are still teary nights, still days when he comes home and kicks the wall while you scream at each other for an hour or until Bro gets home, times when he admits to you that he wishes he was dead, too, but he's making progress. These days become further and further apart, and less and less until they're barely there at all, sometims just memories of 'two Wednesdays ago' or things he tells his psychiatrist about to compare to how well he's doing now. They're not going to put him on any meds. He sleeps the entire night through.

The only thing that still hurts, he says, is the fact that you're in this situation. He says it exactly like that, "this situation", like it's a medical condition and not a literal state of existence. To which you retort, "Maybe I could find another body to occupy, like on Ghost Whisperer", but he doesn't laugh like you expect him to.

You wish you slept. The romantic tension builds up and builds up and sometimes it's so smothering that you have to get up and sit on the other side of the room from him, worried about what you'll do otherwise. It's not an entirely ridiculous idea that you might work yourself up so much that your entire body goes through his and you solidify somewhere in between. You entertain fantasies about what it might be like to accidentally become a part of Dave.

As if you'd ever tell him about this- it's human nature, you reason, even though you're a ghost now- desire to coalesce, to wake up a part of him, limbs one in the same or at least sewn together in some fashion, breathing through the same pair of lungs. Sometimes you try to breathe in when he breathes out, the illusion of sharing the same air for some time until it seems like he's going to wake up and you start out of your own borderline creepy state. God, you wish you belonged to him.

He is very pretty when he is awake, and very, very pretty when he is asleep. His hair takes on this strange tone, in the light of his bedroom. It's almost pitch black in the room if his curtains are shut, tinged red or blue depending on the weather when his blinds are slightly open. For his birthday, Bro gives him lace net curtains ("'cause you're a grandma now, grandma") and in the middle of the night after he's hung them, when it's a full moon, the shadows throw spiderweb patterns across his sleeping form. A persian rug stencil on his cheek, the impression of perfect drops of ink across the pale, freckled expanse of his back when morning first breaks.

He replaces them back for the venetians when the irony wears off, which you can hardly complain about; your wanting him this badly has very little to do with the kinds of patterns that the shadows throw across him in the latest hours of night and the earliest of morning. You would be quick to argue that it definitely has more to do with the hitch in his regular tone when he laughs, the fact that he sings in the shower when his Bro isn't home (and sometimes when he is), the way he slurps his noodles and cracks grins when you rant about stupid things. You love seeing him personified in colour, rich shades of blue and red and utter Dave Strider; too often had he been varying shades of grey in the days you worried most for him. It still breaks your heart in a way when you hear him laugh, really laugh, even now.

And then one morning he leaves for school, and you come back upstairs after following him to the door, to find that the wardrobe doors have been left open, and the shoebox is in plain sight.

You try to open it immediately, and manage to pull it all the way out of the wardrobe, almost without breaking a sweat. It's been getting increasingly easier lately; almost like you have the mechanics down but can't quite fathom how to handle the mentality of it. Like you're too intangible to handle things that are.

You almost give up, wishing you could just kick the damn thing open, but then you picture the look Rose gives you when you get frustrated, and you persist.

And after a long, long time, you get the first letter open and in your hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm sorry for kind of, like, not updating for two months??? how did that happen uh  
> i'm getting my shit together; i've got a chart on my wall and everything. no kidding. i've scheduled out every piece of writing i'm going to be doing for the next seventeen weeks. how very virgo of me.  
> (i'm a libra help i have no clue what i'm doing)  
> ANYWAY  
> thanks a bunch if you're still here!! everyone who comments is so nice, and your support keeps me going  
> so thank you for that :)  
> updates scheduled approximately once a week! stay tuned next week for mega embarrassed john, kawaii overload, and ~sexy stuff~


	10. Chapter 10

[I](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kh09MuIfIU&list=PLzTf8htqJYpp0C8cHp7MbFPuzFiZWJgLf)t’s poetry.

You try, meticulously, to remember back to your earliest days of friendship with Dave. When you and he first started talking, he rapped a lot more. In fact, he rapped so often that eventually, you had to ask him what the hell was up with all the rapping. He admitted to you then that it was because he really liked writing; he liked poetry, the way it flowed, making words rhyme, forming his thoughts into pretty metaphors and clever euphemisms; and then he made you swear on your life not to tell anybody. God knows why, because everything else he did was embarrassing anyway, but you kept to your word nonetheless. Very occasionally you'd catch in the raps he'd send you the hint of something more, something deeper; but never did you think that he was actually writing poetry.

Sure enough, an entire half of the box- that is, the half of envelopes that are a slightly darker colour, the ones he wrote before you died- is made up of poetry and pieces of writing, depicting his feelings about his disorder, his feelings about the world, his feelings about you.  You sit there for close to an hour just reading through them all. It's funny; they're almost like a reflection of his other letters, only with a lot more metaphors. One of your particular favourites is written about a month before his suicide attempt, and ends with: 'And I want to wander the valleys/Of the boy made of blood and air and earth/And exchange life.' Another just ends with 'All I want is to breathe.'

By the time you're through with darker envelopes, the sun has shifted its position in the sky and Bro is home for his lunch break. You know this, because you can hear him, in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards loudly in search of food. God, you wish you could go and make yourself a sandwich; for the simple sake of habit, rather than our of hunger. You forget what it feels like to be hungry, and that is one of the things that scares you most, but only because it makes you wonder what else you're forgetting.

You sit and listen in the afternoon light of Dave's bedroom until you hear that tell-tale sound of the front door closing, meaning it's a couple of hours until Dave's going to get home from school. It's a Thursday. Tomorrow is a Friday. Fridays mean that Bro will work past midnight, and Dave will stay up late talking to you, so you won't be so lonely. You like Fridays.

Digging back into the box, you get the next letter open, one of the lighter ones he must have written a few weeks ago for you; not that any of them are dated. Just etched with your name on the front, like a part of him is still contemplating giving them to you.

 

john   
fuck its been a while since ive written one of these   
this feelings kind of weird huh   
i mean i dont know why im asking you   
its weird for me   
is what i meant   
uh   
yeah   
if youre wondering or if you havent noticed yes i have gotten stupider and even worse at communicating about my feelings   
like yooooo what even is the point right   
im kidding   
i know theres a point   
you taught me that   
um   
i guess i should write about how i feel   
like about you   
and having you here with me   
honestly, it sucks   
i mean that   
this honestly completely one hundred per cent sucks   
but i wouldnt trade it for anything because youre here with me and thats whats important   
i mean it man   
in like   
the cheesiest   
sappiest way possible   
i am thankful for nothing as much as i am thankful to have you here next to me   
sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night and im so scared that i dreamt the whole thing and ill get up and youll be in a hole in the ground still and everyone will still be missing you and will think im crazy and ill have to go back to never talking to you ever   
but then i see you   
there next to the bed   
or   
lying beside me   
or wandering around the room trying to touch things thinking im not gonna notice how hard youre tying you adorable little shit   
and ill be so, so thankful   
and so   
relieved   
that youre still here   
that i dont know what to do about it   
and thats the problem   
im so dependent on this and i guess im just scared because i dont know what id do if you disappeared   
how id deal   
id want to get on with my life obviously and i know thats what youd want for me but   
shit   
dont know if i could without thinking about you every single day   
rose tries to get me to talk about it   
and jade but you know jades less concerned about any possibilities of codependency  and more concerned with the yaois   
shes always asking if im okay if youre okay whats happening   
she says it like that like "What's happening, Dave?" like maybe one day ill just be like uuuh yknow the usual i woke up i brushed my teeth i fucked my dead best friend and im now dating a ghost why whats happening w/ you lalonde   
no   
thats not gonna happen   
i mean mainly because i cant touch you but also because   
well   
you know   
i still dont think i have a chance   
and i knoooooow you said you have feelings back for me which   
to be honest im still completely freaking out about   
and a part of me is skeptical   
and like worried about your mental health because john   
youre you   
and im me   
and you know i dont believe in leagues or whatever but regardless i am waaaaaaaay out of your league and you could do so much better   
especially if you were alive but hey maybe theres a heaven and some ghost babe is up there waiting to mack on all over your cute face   
i *hope* thats the case because you deserve that man you deserve all of that   
which is why id never make a move   
i know what its like to feel trapped in something like that because youre friends with the person   
(i never told you this and ill never ever ever ever say it again but i lied about never getting romantic with jade one time in the seventh grade she had a huge crush on me and neither of us said anythinge even though we both clearly knew and she ended up kissing me at my birthday party and i was too awkward and afraid of hurting her feelings so i kissed back and went along with it and we dated for like two days in secret before she asked me if i was gay and yeah thats the story of how i simulataneously came out to harley and ineptly broke her poor maiden heart true story)   
but anyway i know what its like to feel trapped and i dont want that   
i dont want you to panic about hurting my feelings and feel like you have to settle for me   
even though a selfish part of me wishes you would because fuuuuuck i love you so much i have never and will never feel this strongly for any other goddamned human being ever again   
youre my whole life i cant believe how lucky i am just to have you as a best friend   
ive always felt this way like its not a new thing i just   
ugh   
yknow   
youre standing outside the door right now   
you said youd give me some space to write the letter but i can tell how bad you wanna read it   
dork

You smile at the end of the letter, your heart doing all kinds of weird flippy things. It occurs to you, momentarily, that reading the letters this time is a lot different; you'll have to see Dave later, and look at his face, and pretend like you don't know all these things he's said about you. And oh, you just want to grab him by the shirt; you want to grab him and kiss the living daylights out of him and tell him how stupid he is, how everything would be okay if he'd just touch you. If only he could, that is. You whack your hand pathetically against his bedside drawers, scowling when it goes through. Rose, smug as ever, would have a field day over the fact that you've managed to read Dave's letters, but it's a minor achievement to you. It's not exactly as if you can suddenly touch him.

 

You flip through the envelopes, counting them. There are only ten in total this time, which isn't surprising considering he's only been writing maybe once or twice a week and only when he can convince you to get the hell out of his room for ten minutes. Actually, come to think of it, a few of these have probably been written out of the house. Sneaky bastard. You'd hit him if you could.

You read through a couple more of the letters, relieved that the fact that he's seemingly getting better is reflected in his letters. Miraculously, the actual tone of the letters manages to change after a while; he talks down on himself less, counts good days and good things that have happened to him. He writes, "today was a very good day because my hair looked good i wore a short sleeved shirt and jade recited every line to that rap i told her the other day like a real champ". In another, he writes, "fuck homework. fuck it to hell. homework is the worst thing in my life right now. and i hate that im smiling about that right now." In another, he writes, "today was good because i had a free period in math karkat shouted me aj at lunch im losing my mind with sexual frustration and-"

 

Wait, what.

 

You glare down at the letter, incredulous.

 

and the weather was all nice and stormy   
oh yeah   
i have never wanted to fuck one person so much in my goddamn life   
john you fucking minx   
i bet you know what youre doing to me   
you have to   
no one is that seductive on purpose i mean come on last night you told me you wanted me   
mean   
you finished your sentence a couple seconds later with "to be my friend forever" but you were all blushy   
so obviously you know what i was thinking   
and i knew what you were thinking   
and it was just one big 'know what the other is thinking' party and it was great thanks i went to sleep with a boner the size of the empire state building   
ha ha good one dave   
no you shit   
i am not kidding   
you are driving me mental   
its not just today actually its been like this a lot lately   
i mean its been like this always but especially lately because ive been a lot happier and ive felt a lot less insane and whoa hey there sex drive welcome back buddy can i get you a drink   
no thanks dave says my sex drive im here for one thing and one thing only   
the egderp booty   
i want that booty served raw on a plate at my leisure   
get all dick city up in there   
carve a fuckin wombat burrow up in that bitch raise a family in there   
hahahaha are you turned on yet you totally are im the master of dirty talk   
no but   
seriously   
i want to fuck you so bad

 

You glance away from the letter, swallowing thickly. Your face is  on fire, cheeks burning scarlet mortification. Well. That sure is. A thing he's written. Maybe you could just... look back down and read some more...

 

life ruiningly bad   
i think about it all the time like i am pretty much always thinking about your butt   
its such a nice butt   
really round   
really plush   
goddamn papa egbert had a little miracle baby with a miracle butt god bless   
i cant stop thinking about how itd be   
id come home and youd be waiting for me   
you wouldnt even get to turn around and look at me before i pinned you to the wall   
pressed my lips to yours, hot and heavy   
youd moan around my mouth and move to thread your arms around my neck   
hold me in place   
one hand would move down and grab my shirt and youd already be getting hot all over thinking about it   
so would i   
because wed both want each other so bad   
id get your shirt off and youd go to get mine off and itd get stuck and wed both laugh but it wouldnt last long because then wed be kissing again my knee sliding between your legs   
id press forward and youd moan jut your hips forward gasp my name   
please gasp my name   
thats one of the few things i ever seriously wanted just to hear your voice get all high and breathy for me to hear you say my name with lust all over your tone   
a little whine of dave dave dave please dave more dave   
wanna make you feel so good   
id go down on you slow so that you knew i was doing it the whole time   
so that you had time to think about it make it all a big huge deal before my mouth was actually sealed around you   
itd just be your tip at first but youd moan anyway because the suction would be that good   
id flatten my tongue and slide down maybe take the whole thing   
no gag reflex babe youd be thanking god almighty our lord and saviour that a strider is gracing your junk with his talented throat   
"fuck dave feels so good please more dont stop"   
but i would   
because id know if i went for much longer that youd cum   
and i wouldnt want that   
yet   
so id pull off and youd complain and id laugh at you for being such a dork   
and youd be pissed until you saw what i was getting from my drawers and then your eyes would go all cloudy with lust   
id work you up slow one then two fingers in you with my lips by your ear whispering telling you how hot you looked   
because you would   
god, you would, youd look so hot all red in the face and gagging for it   
id tease about it first and youd be all bashful and embarrassed but then id hit that spot and youd *scream* for me   
gasp oh god what was that dave please do it again   
and i would   
because all i want is for you to feel good   
and id keep doing it until you were rocking back on my hand moaning my name   
youd be begging me to fuck you then   
so i would   
id push you onto your back and kiss you hard maybe run my hands down your sides before i lifted up your legs at the knees and spread them   
youd be embarrassed   
id slide in   
then you wouldnt be so embarrassed anymore because youd feel too good to care   
id fuck you flat on your back with a good angle at your neck so i could bite you all over and leave marks or maybe   
maybe you could bite mine, and tell me im yours, and leave me with hickies all over   
wrap your arms and legs around me hold me close and move with me moan how much you love me   
cry when you cum   
id want you to cum first i mean its only gentlemanly of me   
plus i want you to feel good i want that better than i want for myself to feel good like a million times over   
youre so precious to me fuck i wanna give you the world you deserve it   
if youd let me id finish in you if not id pull out like a proper gentleman and jack off over you or something   
fuuuuuck i just wanna be looking at your face when i cum   
youre so hot you know that   
messy hair flushed face taking all these big breaths   
maybe youd get yourself all worked up again you know being a teenage boy and all and then id have an excuse to go down on you again two fingers in you not stopping till you were coming again   
id be fine with that yknow   
one day i want to be able to just suck your dick for hours straight without stopping id do it yknow i wanna taste you *everywhere*   
suck a heart shape into your hip so every time you take off your pants youd see it and think of me   
mark me too   
rake your nails down my back draw blood leave something thatll feel like you later   
the imprint of your nails or   
the shape of your teeth in my neck   
either or   
fuck, i want you john   
i want you so bad   
its kind of ruining my life   
-dave 'sexual frustration is driving me crazy' strider


	11. Chapter 11

[T](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keDoOlmf8m4&feature=kp)hings get awkward after that.

You thank whatever God you're not sure you believe in that you at least manage to clean up the letters and get them back into the closet by the time that Dave gets home; and then you thank Him again, for Dave not being suddenly overcome with any urges to check on the letters.

You sit like you normally do and watch movies together, while Dave talks (and talks) about something to do with Sollux's pathetic attempts at courting someone, or something. Normally you'd be listening, but tonight, you're kind of distracted. To say the least.

"And then he- whoa, dude, chill," he soothes, holding his hands up in front of him. It takes you a second to realise that you jumped when he went to touch you. "What's up?"

"Nothing," you say, punctuating the word with a shrug. "I'm chill." Totally chill. Chill city over here. You scratch at the empty space beneath you nervously.

Dave raises an eyebrow nonetheless, staring you down incredulously. "You don't look chill. Something happen today?"

"Not really," you admit. No point in telling him about the letters; he'd only get mad and demand you forget about them, or something. No point in telling him you can't stop thinking about what he said in them, either.

But since he's looking at you like that, eyebrow raised and all genuine concern, you try to think on your feet.

"I can touch things," you blurt out. Dave's eyes widen.

You play with your fingers apprehensively, feeling stupid. "Well, I- sort of. I mean, I can touch things more than I could, like, before."

You stare down at your fingers in wonder. What would it take to just solidify them? They look tangible enough. After a moment, you look up at Dave.

He's staring at your hands, too, biting his lip with an expression of diffidence.  He forgot to pause the movie, and explosions shatter his speakers quietly in the background. Finally- and you mean that literally, _finally_ , because honestly it feels like a century that he's looking down at you for- he looks up and meets your eyes, and you realise with a tiny sense of horror that he looks  _hopeful._ To save him and yourself the shattering look of disappointment in his eyes, you go to stop him before he can reach out to touch your hand. 

"I still can't-" But you don't get to finish your sentence, because Dave reaches out to touch your anyway. His fingers graze your cheek- just for a second, you think you feel the soft breach of his skin against yours, the snap of electricity of your nerves reacting to solace after neglect- but they go through you, just as expected. The wave of nausea that rolls through you is slow building, but you barely feel it. You're too caught up with the realisation that he was about to kiss you.

As it is, he just looks disappointed and a little embarrassed as he settles back against the headboard of his bed. You swear you hear him physically deflate.

You move back against the headboard, too, averting your gaze from him. You immediately choose not to ask him if he was going to kiss you. Mainly because his answer is going to pain you regardless of what it is, but also because you know the answer and the thought makes your chest hurt. What are you supposed to do about this?

"I can't actually, um... all I meant is that I was able to sort of move stuff today. A little progress on what Rose has being trying for."

He nods, stiffly. You don't talk about it again.

You try not to watch him sleep, because honestly, that's really creepy. He left his tv on, low volume, for you, despite the fact that you know he finds it hard to sleep with any kinds of light or noise, so he keeps stirring. Downstairs Bro is still on his laptop, the keys clicking noisily every time you stick your head out the door. (Mainly to distract yourself.) You end up giving up and sneaking glances every now and again, because hey, it's not like Dave ever has to find out, even if it  _is_ borderline psychotic. You swear you can't help it, though; in a purely human sense, you like the way he looks with his guard down. That's always just been a... a thing, that you like the way his eyelashes rest carelessly on his cheek, fine and long and dear god, his freckles look nice under the blue glow of the television. You spend ten minutes just tracing the outline of his lips with your eyes and imagining how it would feel to rest your own against them. You almost try, a few times, just for the hell of it, but always holding you back is the fear that he'll wake up and... and what? Kiss you back? No, that's not your fear.

Your fear is the crushing disappointment you'd both feel when you realised you couldn't.

It's been easier, up to now, just not thinking about it. You mean, sure, there have always been the occasional passing thoughts of  _i wish_ or  _what if._ But with the fact that you'd never  _tried_ came the subconscious sense of hope, maybe, that you could.

Despite the fact that you still feel no desire to sleep, you spend the night restless and exhausted.

 

The next day is a Friday, and since Fridays are your favourite days, you spend it dancing around the house like an idiot. It's not all bad, really; once you get past (ignore) the fact that you're dead and everything, it's kind of cool, being able to walk through solid objects. Sure as hell makes dancing a lot easier, because you're clumsy and used to run into everything. Yeah, it's not all bad; the nausea is kind of worth the lack of bruising on your hip that would normally be a sure-fire if you were planning on dancing like this were you still alive.

Today, Dave has left on an Iron & Wine album. You know for a fact that Jade gave it to him, but you also know for a fact that Dave loves it, because he's listened to it with you.

You spend a lot of time thinking, too. Thinking about Dave, and about this whole situation. What are you now? You want to ask him, but you're nervous. To put it lightly. Which brings you back to the whole not being able to touch him dilemma.

You wonder, what would happen if you  _could_ touch him? You mean, obviously, you would... but then, that has to do with your situation, right? You think back to when you first died, how you didn't... 'move on' straight away. For the first time ever, you wonder why that is.

And the fear that Dave might be the reason is almost enough to make you want to never kiss him ever.

Not because it's his fault, or anything- God no- but simply because suddenly, you're wondering about the concept of unfinished business. You've read and watched enough ghost-centric media to understand the general gist of how that works. And that scares you.

More than anything, though, you think about those damn letters, about the things he wrote in them. You've never felt such a desire just to  _touch_ another human being. You wouldn't even mind if you didn't get to have sex with him, either- though certainly no complaints would be put up if you  _could-_ and more than anything you just want to be able to feel his skin under your hand, or feel his hair run through your fingers, or kiss him.

What was Rose saying about that? She has a bunch of theories. Mainly, she says, the problem is that you're thinking too hard. So should you just sort of... try to let things happen? That seems like it would take way too long. You could just grab Dave and try to kiss him without thinking about it. Maybe that would help push things along? You sigh, finishing the last petal on the flower you're doodling just as the album comes to a close for about the fifth or sixth time. He's got it set up to play on repeat all day, meaning you get to hear each and every song until you're sick of it. Not that you are, yet. Cinders and Smoke starts up again and you go back to drawing idly.

So obviously the problem is...

You stop. Everything kind of zeroes in for a moment, and in this weird, awe-stricken kind of way, you look down at the pen, and realise you are holding it perfectly.

And doodling flowers.

You are holding the pen perfectly and doodling flowers and leaning on Dave's bench.

Very, very carefully, you reach up and trace your hand over it. It connects with the surface, instantly, and you feel the smooth marble surface under your fingertips as you slide your hand across it, feel the breadcrumbs from where Bro made lunch earlier catch against your fingers. You take a step away, and do the same to the wall adjacent to the fridge. Your hand doesn't go through that either.

Everything explodes in a sudden sensation of elation. Then you're running around Dave's house, Samuel Beam's voice by this point a very faint background noise in comparison to the way you're practically screaming your joyous laughter. You touch every wall, jump and hit every roof, spread your arms snow angel style over his carpet and laugh manically, disbelievingly. When you pump your fists in the air, still on the floor, you exert so much energy that the light bulb directly overhead shatters.

You're still laughing about that when you hear the front door open.

"John," Dave calls once he's in the apartment, and your stomach flips. You scramble up to your feet at the sound of him coming up the stairs, pressed against the back wall of his room. Your fingers are touching the plaster; you can _feel_ the wall. 

Dave continues, "John, dude, oh my God, you won't  _believe_ what Karkat did today in third period- oh hey what happened to the light-"

He doesn't get to finish, because you're in front of him in a second, shutting him up with an urgent press of your mouth to his.

You pull away and grin manically. "Holy  _shit!_ " you shout, euphoric, as you dance away from him. "This is so great Dave I can  _touch_ things I can feel again I can't believe this-"

"You kissed me," he says, apparently in too much shock to jump around with you.

"But Dave you don't understand I haven't been able to feel things in so long I blew a light bulb before-"

"You kissed me," he says again, raising an idle hand to touch his lips, "on the mouth. Just now."

"Yes Dave I did I can do that now do you know what that mea-" And this time, apparently, it's his turn to shut you up. Only this time neither of you break the kiss.

He presses you up against the wall, your head hitting it with a hollow thunk. You laugh into the kiss, overwhelmingly delighted at the pain it brings; you missed even  _that._ You're too caught up, however, in kissing Dave to even remember what you were so excited about, his mouth hot and urgent against yours, his hand brushing your neck. The other is gripping your hip, tight, and yours are somewhere wound so far around him that you're surprised you haven't physically integrated with him yet. It  _hurts._ It hurts in the best possible way, and his lips are  _alive_ on yours, his hand  _rips_ at your hair when his fingers tangle in it, his thigh  _presses_ against you in between your legs and-

"God," you choke, into his mouth. The gesture only encourages Dave to meet your tongue with his, reverent and scorching when he presses in closer. It's messy, your heart hammering in attempted escape from your chest, your fingers tight on the material of his shirt. He ruts against you again and you almost burst into tears, overwhelmed.

"Please," you gasp, panting for air against his neck. This close, you can feel the heat from his body, smell his shampoo, the way he's scented with fatigue from a school day, sweat and worn deodorant and  _Dave._ You're so turned on that you shake. " _Please,_ " you repeat, fingers tearing at the material of his shirt. "Please, Dave, please. Want you."

Lost for words, too, apparently, Dave takes one far-too-long look at you and pulls away, though his lips are only absent from yours for a second. You press yourself back flush against him before you've even made it halfway across the room to his bed, almost biting him in your hurry to get him to sit down so that you can crawl into his lap. You manage, thighs on either side of him, cupping his face in your hands. Here is apparently a perfect position for Dave to buck up to you, the alignment perfect. He tastes so good that you feel yourself start to cry before you even realise that he's trying to unbuckle your pants.

"God," you say again, though this time you whisper it; you fumble to help him with his, too, but then your lips feel cold and swollen and alone so you have to shut your eyes and move back in to kiss him again. He works you slowly, at first, or tries to; you're already hard, which would be embarrassing if you were even  _thinking_ at this point. Dave's hard, too, and hot in your hand as he bucks up. You twist your wrist at the head and feel precum slide smooth against your hand. His whimper drops straight through your stomach, pooling hot and low.

Dave's hand keeps slowing down and his thighs keep tensing, like he's trying to make it last; it just makes you grip his arm harder, speed up your own hand, chanting what's practically a nonsensical mantra of, "God Dave please please so close keep going Dave feels so good  _Dave._ "

It's really not long at all before you're too gone to even kiss back properly, moaning into empty air as your hips twitch and Dave kisses and sucks fervidly at your exposed throat. Once or twice you almost forget to move your own hand, but a whine and buck of Dave's hips up into your fist is always enough to jolt you back into reality again. Your orgasm is one of those fast-slow ones that's all build up and intense ending, and you come crying into his neck, boneless and shaking.

You rest slack against him, letting the stars behind your eyes dance and draw you back to reality at their own pace. It takes you a time to get your breathing back into control, nerves still twitching with halcyon contentment all over your body, and it's only then that you realise Dave is begging you to let him come.

A brief flash through your mind considers whether or not it's worth shutting up the staggeringly hot whine in Dave's voice, but luckily for him your hand is already moving before you get a chance to consider it, and then he's whimpering into your mouth and coming all over your hand.

You both sit there for a moment, dazed and lethargic. Dave still seems bewildered, mouth hanging slightly open, panting against you. He runs his hand up and down your back absently, fingers feather light while your own weight presses into him. The nerves in your back shudder lazily, goosebumps drawing in paths like benevolent soldiers. Through this, it occurs to you that the album is still playing.

Dave comes back to life before you do, peppering your chin in brash, carefree kisses, raining affections; and fuck that, you think, he lets out a whole goddamned _thunderstorm,_ and suddenly you're awake, too.

You thread your arms around him and hold him like he's a life raft, words beyond you. Dave fills in the blank spaces for you, murmuring hasty, if not equivocal, jumbles of words all over you, punctuating his kisses, decorating his hickies. You imagine them forming in ink over your skin, embedded inside of you like secrets- yours to read later, yoursyoursyours, Dave is yours- and you definitely hear I Love You in there more than once.

"Dave- Dave, shh, I love you too, I don't-"

"I really thought I'd never be able to," he says, and you feel the wetness from his eyes against your throat as he leans against you, breathes you in. "I thought I'd never touch you. Wanted to so badly, John, you can't even begin to imagine- holy shit. Holy shit, you're incredible. I love you so much. It hurts to look at you."

You kiss him again, indolent. 

You spend the rest of the night touching, talking. You kiss during movies; you hold his hand; you rest with your head against his shoulder, while he plays with your hair, fingers gentle and lax, like this is habit. It storms outside later, so you both crawl under the covers with a torch and kiss in the dim light. Then it gets too hot under there, so you crawl above them and Dave fucks your thighs until you cry again, takes you so far into his throat that you see stars on his ceiling. You try to take your time with each other, mapping Dave's body with your fingertips like he's a journey. Dave bites too hard at your shoulder and draws blood, but before he can apologize you're laughing, because you didn't even know you could still bleed.

"Stay awake," you chastise, at something like 4 in the morning when Dave's eyelids are getting all droopy post-orgasm. You're under the covers again, this time with it propped up like a makeshift tent; but the torch has gone dim and flickery as the batteries wear out. He makes a noise of affirmation, but his eyes close again anyway.

You nudge him firmly. "Dave," you whine quietly, nipping under his chin. "You said you'd stay awake, don't be a wimp."

"M'not," he insists, sleepy. Eyes still shut, he draws you closer in his arms. "I'll stay awake if you stay right here, 'kay?"

"I'll stay right here," you say, "but you're not even gonna stay awake. You're falling asleep right now!"

"S'okay, shh," he says, pressing a finger against your lips. You frown, and consider biting his finger, but end up just kissing it a lot. You see his lips twitch into a drowsy smile.

"It's not okay," you whisper back, moving his finger from your mouth, but your own smile is evident in your voice. "Stay awake. Kiss me some more."

"Mm, want to," he says listlessly, but even as he says it you can hear his voice getting fainter. For just a second, you wonder about the conditions of your existence, and your stomach jolts with fear. You grip his hand, shaking him lightly.

"Hey, Dave, really. Can you try and stay awake for just a little longer?"

"...You scared of the storm?" he mumbles, and it takes you a second to realise that he doesn't really mean the storm, because the thing about Dave is he always understands, no matter what.

You nod, your forehead brushing his. His hand strokes you back idly, slowly. "S'okay," he says again, in that tired, far-off way you do when you're losing a hand in hand battle with exhaustion. 

"It's not-"

"Yeah, it is," he insists, hand still moving on your back. "Here's a safe place, man."

"Where?" you ask. "Right here?"

"Yeah, right here. Right the fuck here, this very spot, is completely safe, John."

You swallow. You're thinking about unfinished business again. You're scared to not exist. "But... what if it's not? I mean, you can't possibly know that it's safe here."

"Sure I do," he says through a yawn, snuggling in closer to you again. The warmth of his hand on your back is actually making you kind of drowsy. You lean into his touch. "I know for a  _fact_ that it's safe, and you wanna know why?"

You nod your head yes. Dave smiles against your skin.

"Because this moment is never gonna end for me."

The rain hums away outside still, destroying the Texas streets, breaking the silence with the pleasant sound of white noise. It takes you a moment to realise that Dave's fallen asleep, his breathing slow and even against your cheek. Your own eyelids flutter, but for whatever reason, Dave's words are somehow making sense, and panic is beyond you. Why not sleep, right now? Why haven't you been, this whole time? Sleep is such a lovely condolence, such gorgeous relief.

And Dave's right; you can't imagine being taken from this moment. Not like this. Not with the rain keeping you trapped in this apartment, the blanket keeping you in this intimate space, Dave's arms keeping you in place.

For the first time since your death, you find the pleasant blackness of sleep before it finds you.


	12. Chapter 12

You wake up in a chair in Jade's vacation home.

"Hello, John."

You turn towards the voice; it's imperatively softer than you remember. You shrink into the trite rose pattern and lose your limbs somewhere along the way. You can feel the absence of blood from your face.

"No," you say, but your voice breaks.

"Now, John," says the woman; all business. For whatever reason, you expected her to look different; aged, or something, even though you've been away for less than a year. But she looks exactly the same, right down to the very last strand of hair. In a way, it's utterly terrifying. "I understand you must be feeling somewhat confused."

You're more afraid than confused, you think, but you don't say so out loud. You grip to the banal concept of playing dumb like maybe it'll save you now.

Despite your vow to silence, you suddenly find yourself blurting out, "That wasn't seriously my unfinished business, right?"

A single dark eyebrow shoots up. Some of the blood comes back to your face.

"I just- um- meant that, um, I can sort of touch things now," you stammer, a quick save that isn't quick or a save. It's clear from her expression that she doesn't believe you, but she saves you both the embarrassment and just clears her throat slightly.

"No, John, that wasn't your unfinished business."

"What was, then?" you ask, leaning forward in your chair. The scent of the house is more suffocating than anything, now. The salty play-dough smell of childhood is a motionless, archetypal slap in the face. Like some vivid, repetitive nightmare. "I mean, if you don't mind me asking."

Can you lie about these kinds of things? Maybe you can find out whatever it is- though you have a very good idea- and deny it ever happening. Go back to Dave and stay there forever.

To your bewilderment, she looks surprised. "Oh- no, John. I'm afraid that's not why you're here at all."

A weird mix of relief and utter dread coarse straight through you. "Wait... what am I here for, then?"

The woman leans back in her chair tidily, folding her hands over her lap. From where you sit, her fingers look bone thin and aberrantly skeletal. It sends a chill down your spine.

"Well, actually, John, you're here because I wanted to make a deal with you."

You freeze, fingers stilling on the filament of thread you were pulling from the arm of the couch. Deal?

"It's a secret to no one that it wasn't your time, John. I am not biased. I never have been; say what you will about it coming as a part of being an incorporeal being, but I like to think it comes with the job. I don't favour... but you, John, well. To say I disagree with your circumstances is... well, an understatement. I empathise with you, John. To go like you did was most certainly not the plan. See, everyone- humans- have a certain criteria that they must meet before their time, and the way you went, you definitely didn't meet yours. That's why I gave you a choice, back when you first came to me. Do you remember that?"

You do. You think about it, sometimes, how you could have just told her that yes, you did change your mind, and you'd be alive right now and with Dave that way. You nod, tightly.

"Good," she breathes, clearly relieved. "I was worried, for a while, that you hated me for that. A lot of people tend to blame me before they blame themselves, or the ones that they love. It hurts, you know. I do have feelings. I can't exactly be held accountable for everyone's actions."

"So what's the deal?" you press, kind of rudely. For just a second, you think you see something sinister gleam in her eyes. She smiles at you.

"Like I said: it wasn't your time. And as you well know, your two options, initially, were to reverse this or to go on with your days as a ghost, dead to the world. You can still do that, John, and I won't stop you. You could live out your numbered days like that, exactly as you are. But you know that's what they are, don't you? Numbered?"

When you say nothing, she goes on. "'Unfinished business' is a term I don't really agree with. Like I said, every human has a criteria. Though I can't disclose the exact details of yours, you were definitely not meant to go until a further date, much later in life, in quite a different way. But you didn't."

"So I... cheated fate?" you ask.

She shakes her head. "Something like that I suppose, yes, if you want to put it that way. The point is this: you  _will_ die, for good, just like everyone else. The beauty of life is not knowing when that is, but somehow being ready for it anyway. Were you still alive, and you met the criteria and died properly, the way you were meant to... everything would be okay. As you are now, well. I'm sure the day it happens, you won't be the only one affected, am I right?"

You start to make sense of what she's saying. "Dave," you say, slowly, like you're trying the name out. She nods.

"Yes. One day he'll wake up, and you'll just be gone, John."

You knew this. It still makes your breath go all shuddery to hear it. "But not today, right?"

She shrugs, lightly. "Not if you don't want, no. But you must admit that this isn't ideal. The way you are... you'll be like this forever, until the day you lose consciousness of this life, and then all traces of you will be gone. Your friend won't know what happened, and he will be alone. Even the way it is now- he must be lonely, right?"

It's not the first time you've thought about it. In about a year's time, Dave will surely be wanting to move out and get his own place. Maybe go to college, make more friends, get a job. Did he ever want kids? To get married? To move to an exciting, far away country? He'd never get to do that with you around. You hate to admit it, but put simply, you are holding him back.

She looks at you sympathetically, as if she knows exactly what you're thinking. "You can't have honestly thought that it would work out."

But you did. Even if it was for only a second, you did, because when you were lying there with him, you didn't  _care_ about anything else. He was all that mattered. Dave mattered, and that was it. You swallow past a lump in your throat, and realise you're on the brink of tears. "I don't... I can't. I don't know what to do."

She leans back in her chair, folding her hands neatly on her lap. "Like I said. I'm giving you a choice. You could go back, right now. You would wake up, and Dave would be alive. No one would know you had ever died."

You stare at her for a long moment, incredulous. "I would be alive?"

"You would."

"And Dave would be alive?"

"He would."

"Then... we'd both be okay? And neither of us would be dead?"

"Yes," she says, "that's the general idea."

Your eyes narrow, disbelieving. "I'm sorry," you say, "but why the hell  _wouldn't_ I pick that option?"

"Because," she says, very calmly, "going back would mean forgetting. Everything."

Very slowly, it dawns on you what she means. You breathe in, out, like the tide, your lungs as celestial as the woman in front of you. Your fingers shake.

"I wouldn't remember that Dave loves me," you say. Your voice is blank.

She nods, grimly. "That's correct."

"And he wouldn't remember that I love him."

"Right."

"And he wouldn't remember getting better. He'd still be depressed, and I..."

"Would have to deal with your own suicide attempt," she finishes, leaning forward and placing her hand over yours. You expect her hand to be cold, but to your surprise, it is very warm. "And with everyone else. Neither of you would remember any of this at all."

"Then..." you swallow. "There's a good chance that we'd never be together. Romantically, I mean."

"Yes, John," she says. "There's a very, very good chance of that happening."

Your pulse, jumping and shuddering beneath the willowy page of skin at your wrist before, almost seems to still now as you sit there, thinking about nothing in particular other than Dave. Dave as he is now, coming home happy, kissing your temples with a smile on his mouth; Dave never getting to live the life he wants, being stuck. Dave how he was before, less than human with how depressed he felt; but he still had hope, a chance at a life. 

You swallow shakily, trying not to let your voice tremble. "Will he remember? I mean, this Dave, the one from this timeline, or whatever. Will he know that I'm gone?"

"Oh, John, time doesn't work like that," she soothes, and the tone of her voice, along with what she is saying, calms you instantly. "Time isn't all pieces and strings and fragments. It's very fluid. This Dave, along will all of the other people of this very time, will lose consciousness without ever knowing they've done so. Dave will go back to how he was before; as will everyone else. It'll be like starting over."

That sounds plausible. Your stomach still jolts with fear. "Can I... can I  _talk_ to him about this?" you plea, voice barely a creak.

She nods enthusiastically. "Of course you can. I wouldn't ever expect you to make a decision this big without first consulting... well, the other main person involved, I suppose. I'm not wicked, John."

You nod your head. And then, finally, you swallow. "Alright," you say. "I want to go talk to him."

And just like that, you're back lying next to bed in Dave.

Or, not next to him. He's not in bed at all.

You shoot up out of the bed, alarmed. How long were you gone? "Dave?" you call, panicked. When he doesn't answer, you go to do it again, ducking out his door, and almost run into him and a plateful of toast.

"Whoa- chill, John, I'm right here. When I woke up you were asleep, so I thought, hey, you don't normally do that, maybe you can do other things too. Like, I dunno, eat. Dumb. Wanna try it?"

"Oh- Dave, I..." you trail off, not even knowing where to begin. He steps around you into the room, casually exuberant. You brace yourself. "We need to talk."

"It better be about food," he says, "because I'm starving. And it better not be the 'it's not you, it's me' talk, because I can't deal with one of those, man."

"Dave."

"It also better not be the 'this was only a one night stand' talk, because come on, I rate at least  _two_ nights. I had you  _screaming_ last night, I mean-"

" _Dave,_ " you say, an air of finality to your tone, and he shuts up. You hang around awkwardly for a second, and then go over to sit on the bed, patting the space next to you. He comes to sit down.

"What's up?" he says, sounding nervous.

You play with your fingers nervously. "I'm..." You're what, you think? Leaving? You look him right in the eye. "Last night, when I went to sleep, I thought I was moving on. You know, like, passing over, like ghosts do."

"I know," he says. "I thought so, too, when I woke up. Just for a second, and I was terrified. But-" he shakes his head, grinning. "you weren't, so it's okay. Here you are. You're fine."

"Yes, Dave, but-"

"Seriously, don't even worry about it, there's no point. However long you're here for is- it doesn't even matter, right? You're here. It's better than nothing."

"But it  _is_ nothing," you say, and your voice breaks, and then suddenly you're crying. Dave watches you, shocked, unsure what to do for a very long moment before he decides on wrapping his arms around you while you break down. "It's- it's  _nothing,_ I'm nothing, and you deserve more than that. We both do. We deserve lives, not whatever the fuck this is."

He's silent for a moment. Then, stiffly, he says, "I know."

You sniffle, looking up at him. "You do?"

"Yeah, John- look. I know all that shit. And I know it's just gonna get more and more complicated, but- I can't do it without you, okay? That's it. That's all I have to say. No matter what, if I can in any way, shape or form, I'll be with you. Every time. Okay?"

That just makes you cry harder. It takes you a while to stop, and when you do, your face is a mess. "That's what I need to tell you," you say. "I just found out. There's another way. The woman who brought me here, she said so. She said I can go back to the way things were, only I'd wake up and we'd both be alive. But... but we wouldn't remember. Either of us. We'd go back to not knowing how the other felt. You could very well hate me. You'd be depressed again, and I- I'd be post-suicide attempt." And so you go on to explain to him everything she told you, all the details.

Dave's eyes blow open wide, full of shock. "John, you have to do it!"

You blink at him. "Huh?"

"You can't tell me you're actually considering not doing it," he says, shaking his head in bewilderment.

"But..." you stammer, at loss. "You'll be sick again. You won't remember that I love you. There's a good chance we wouldn't even end up together."

"But we will be," he says, shaking his head; and he's  _smiling._ "John, you idiot. The only reason I managed to get through all of this shit was because of  _you._ And you'll  _be there._ We both will. And... fuck, it'll be hard. It was, and it will be, and there'll be times where we hate each other or everything or want to die or all three, but- that's how it's meant to be.  _And you'll be there._ John, you'll know. The letters, you idiot- you'll  _know._ Everything will be fine."

He's crying, too, and since that's bound to start you up again, you throw your arms around him, burying your head in his shoulder and shaking hard. You're not ready to leave this yet. You tell him this, quietly.

"You won't," he says, voice muffled. "I promise I won't either, okay? Everything's gonna be okay. I told you, this moment won't end, not if you don't let it."

"But it will," you say, hiding in the nape of his neck, trailing tear-wet kisses, breathing him in like it's the last time you'll be able to. "I'm scared."

"Me too," he admits, quietly. 

And somehow, it's enough.

You break away from him, sniffing. "So this is an unofficial goodbye, then? How do I-"

"Hello, John."

You blink, dazed. You're back in the chair, and the woman is smiling at you, though this time with a lot more confidence. Your stomach lurches at the absence of Dave, and you think, no, I'm not ready! before you remember that yes, you are. You take a series of deep, steadying breaths, and tell her this. She nods.

"I'm glad. It won't hurt, John, and in a moment, you won't remember this at all."

She stands up, and you do the same, wondering if there's a protocol for this kind of thing. Your hands hesitate awkwardly, and then you make a last minute decision to shake her hand. As you do, she smiles directly at you, and you realise that what you earlier thought was a dark glint in her eyes was only your reflection.

"You'll really be fine, John," she assures you. "You both will be. I met Dave before, did I tell you that? I gave him the same choice to make."

"What did he say?" you ask, bewildered.

Her smile doesn't waver, and her hand hasn't left yours yet. "He chose to go back. I told him something that changed his mind."

When your eyes widen further, she shakes her head. "He won't remember, just like you won't. No one ever remembers me. That's just how it is."

As she drops your hand, you feel your head throb pleasantly; fuzzily, like white noise, and you realise that this is almost like going to sleep.

"Wait," you say, at the shifting focus of the woman in front of you. "Wait, I have one question. Since I won't remember anyway, and all."

She gazes at you levelly, not wavering in her stance of practised elegance. "Yes?"

"Are you... um. Are you an angel?"

She actually laughs at this. It's clarion, and sweet, the kind of dulcet thing you only ever imagine you'd hear from characters in books and the picturesque ideal of the exact thing she's laughing at the concept of. When she stops laughing, she shakes her head.

"No, I'm not," she says, and smiles at you one last time. "I'm Death."

 

You wake up in a white room.

Pause. Breathe. Your fingers twitch, and still, against the unfamiliar sterile sheets. You don't remember going to sleep here. This definitely isn't your bed. Where are you again?

Slowly, you start to piece yourself together as you open your eyes.

"John!"

Your name is John Egbert. You are seventeen years old. You live in Texas.

"Go and get his dad, Jade, he's- John, can you hear me? Are you alright?"

The last thing you remember is downing a bottle of prescription sleeping pills. Not very long ago, your best friend killed himself. He didn't leave you a note. He left you letters.

"John- oh, John, you're awake. Girls, do you mind?"

When your eyes finally open, properly, and focus, the first thing you see is your dad.

Affection swells in the form of a lump in your throat, and you almost break out into tears. "Dad-"

"Shh, John, no, lie down," he soothes, gently easing you back. You didn't even realise that you'd started to sit up. He flops down into the demure grey chair adjacent to the bed, head in hands. Shame, as well as very, very acute regret, flare up in you like wildfire.

"Dad, I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," he says, but that just makes you feel even worse, so you choke on a sob and hide away into your hands. He goes on, regardless. "I should have tried to talk to you about it. It was clear you weren't dealing. And when the school called to say you'd left- I didn't know what to do. I assumed this was just your... your way of  _dealing._ I should have come home right away."

"It wouldn't have made a difference, dad," you plead, wiping at your tears furiously. "I was gonna do it anyway. I did it practically as soon as I was in the door. I'm so sorry- it was stupid. I was upset, and I didn't know what to do. I'm sorry-"

"We'll get you help, alright?" he says, reaching for your hand. He squeezes it, reassuringly, and for the first time in a long time, you feel yourself smile genuinely. "We'll get you all the help you need. I don't care how long it takes. I'm just so glad you're okay. I love you more than anything, John, I don't know what I'd do with myself if-" he breaks, bringing a hand to his mouth, breathing hard. You realise that there are tears in his eyes. He shakes his head, taking off his hat to stare into it. He sighs. "Anyway. Your friends are here. They've been pretty anxious to talk to you. You were out for about three days."

"Three days?" your voice squeaks. Your teachers will know. Everyone at school will know. Bro will have pulled Dave's plug. You honestly, completely, do not know what to do. But you figure it's going to have something to do with a very long road to recovery.

Your dad leaves the room to tell Jade and Rose that they can both come and see you, and they do, not crowding around your bed so much as they do pounce right on you. Jade slaps you in the face.

"Ow!"

"Don't  _ever_ do something like that again!" she says, looking more furious than you've ever seen her, but she hugs you immediately afterwards, fierce and reassuring. As soon as she's pulled away, Rose moves right back in, huffing a harsh breath into your skin. "I should have gone with you," she says. "I shouldn't have said those things I did. I should have-"

"Rose, stop," you say firmly, pulling away to look her straight in the eyes. "It is  _not_ your fault. What I did was reckless and stupid and no one's problem but my own, so stop. It won't happen again, and that's all that matters."

She stares at you, unsure, biting her lip, before finally giving in and throwing her arms around you again. She smells like sweat and faint perfume, and they both look like they haven't been sleeping properly. You've never felt so much love for two people than you do in this exact moment, so violent that your chest feels constricted. You're crying again when Rose pulls away.

Then she and Jade both exchange a look.

"Should we?" Jade says, chewing her lip apprehensively.

Rose shakes her head. "They said not to, until he's more stable, but..."

"What?" you ask, suspicious.

They both look at you.

Jade bites down on a grin. "Dave woke up."

For a very long moment, the room falls utterly silent. You swear that the monotonous beep of your heart monitor actually stops for a second. And then starts up at double the speed. " _What?_ "

"I told you we should have waited," Rose says, and down the hall come the thundering footsteps of some very concerned nurses. Your heart rate goes up even higher. "What do you mean he's  _awake?_ Bro said-"

"He didn't end up doing it," Jade says, grinning hysterically. Two women stick their heads into the room, looking annoyed to see that you're fine.

"Girls, you shouldn't be allowing him to get so excited like that," says one.

"It's really not good for his condition," says the other, coming over to press a hand to your forehead and adjust some things around you.

"He put it off for one night, saying he was gonna do it tomorrow," Jade continues, ignoring the nurses, "and then they called him almost as soon as he left saying he'd woken up. He's still in the ICU, but..."

"I have to see him!" you blurt, and stupidly, in a fit, you try pulling at the constrictions on your arms. Both nurses pounce to keep you in place, restraining you, and you fall back onto the bed, passive, and let out a long, hysterical series of laughs. "I have to see... I can't believe... he's really okay, he's awake..."

"That'll work," one of the nurses murmurs. Rose and Jade giggle at something. You try to lift your head to see what they're laughing at but realise you've shut your eyes.

"What did you do?" you hear Rose ask.

"Upped the dosage on morphine and... other things."

"She means propofol," says another voice, a smug one. "He should be out in a second, you can probably go home and get a well needed night's rest. He'll have hopefully calmed down a bit when you swing by tomorrow."

You want to argue, but you find yourself falling into the welcoming blackness of sleep instead.

 

[B](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYmLhn3qJ6Y)efore now, you realise, you never really grasped the full concept of how a situation could be 'Okay'. Jade and Rose come back to visit when you're awake and calmed down, and the three of you sit around talking. Rose lets you rant, get out all of your frustration to her. You play Uno and beat Jade three times in a row. They talk about Dave, about how he's asleep more often than not and talks about you non-stop. Apparently he said something in his sleep about you saying you loved death, or death saying you loved him, or something. Your chest hurts with such affection for him that it makes you sick.

By the time they let you cross the short walk down the hall of your ward to see him, when he's been pulled out of intensive care and brought to more comfortable bedding, you're both awake more than anything and on the short road to physical recovery. He hears you come in before he sees you, but doesn't say anything. Silently, you cross the room and pull him into your arms. Three hours later some nurses find you like that, asleep in his bed. They give you a very long lecture on why that's apparently not okay.

It's a long road to recovery, but for whatever reason, you're okay with that. You get out of hospital before Dave does, and he's started sessions with this bossy, uptight psychiatrist before that. He hates it. You know this, because he talks about it all the time. You laugh every time he brings it up, and then the two of you spend the next half hour going over in excruciating detail why his psychiatrist could be so much better at their job. And it's Okay. You're Okay.

Dave finds out about the letters a couple of months in, when he's five weeks clean from cutting and three days clean from a Bad Day. He tells you to forget about them with a very blunt kind of embarrassment, face red and refusing to look at you. He's sitting on his bed when it happens, hands clenched into fists on his lips, chin all trembly and he's too cute not to, so you kiss him, a quick peck on the lips. You pull away and stand up just as his eyes are widening, and say, "Never said I didn't feel the same way," and duck out of his room, quickly. You hear him curse out loud just as you're leaving the apartment and giggle headily to yourself, more overwhelmingly giddy than you've ever been.

Your first date has to be rescheduled because Dave has a Bad Day, so you, Rose and Jade all show up at his place with ice cream and movies and instead spend the night you were meant to be spending on your date all huddled around his bed, legs one big tangle, letting him cry and telling him why he's important and loved and wanted. It makes him cry harder, but you think that's just because he loves you guys so much.

You finally have the date a week later when he's been having nothing but Good Days, and he takes you first to a shabby Italian place to pick up dinner before you trek through the now overgrown path to your cave. You eat the takeaway boxes of pasta under the stars, and when it gets too dark to see properly, Dave laces his fingers with your and asks if he can kiss you. It tastes like pasta sauce, but it's weirdly the best moment of your entire life.

After a long while he stops having Bad Days altogether, and he just starts having days. At your graduation, when everyone is making speeches, Jade elects you two the official married couple of the school, and Karkat laughs so hard and so proudly that he cries. You lose your virginity upstairs in Dave's bedroom at the after party, tipsy on beer and tangled in Dave's covers while a band called Iron & Wine plays downstairs. Afterwards, it pours with rain outside.

"That's it," Dave says, still out of breath, and pushes some of your sweat-slicked hair back up your forehead, kissing it. You swat at his thigh.

"What's it, dumbass?"

"That's it like, I'm in love with you, that's it."

You scoff, slapping him again. "You can't only love me for my body, that's so unfair."

"But your body's so  _good,_ " he whines, and rolls you over, devouring your neck with kisses, fingers starting an intricate series of pokes and prods at your sides. You burst out into a fit of laughter despite yourself, breathlessly trying to shove him off of you. Instead of rolling off of you, he just stops and smiles down at you like he can't believe what he's looking at.

"What?" you ask, nervous.

"Nothing," he says, "just that I feel like I've lived this moment before."

"Good way or bad way?" you implore.

"Good way," he decides, certain. Then he grins and pokes you again, playfully, "Hey, maybe we were together in a past life or something."

You snort. "You don't believe in past lives. You don't even believe in ghosts."

"But I believe in soul mates," he says, still grinning, "'cus you're mine."

You smile cheesily at him. "Loser."

"Nerd," he retorts, and kisses you.

It's very rare to catch Dave at a completely silent moment, and ones like this, where you're just kissing, coexisting, one in the same together, are your favourites, so you try your best to hang on to the moment. Downstairs now, some British India song is playing, Declan Melia singing his angsty heart out about making someone love him.

"Fuck, I love this song," Dave mutters, into the kiss.

You just tangle your hands in his hair and try to make the moment last.

 

 


End file.
